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HISTORIC DOUBTS 



RBLATIVB TO 



NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE, 



HISTORIC CERTAINTIES 



BKSPEGTING THE 



EARLY HISTORY OF AMERICA. 



BY 



RICHARD WHATELY, D. D., 

Late Archbishop of Dubliji, 



NEW YORK: 

ROBERT CARTER & BROTHERS, 

53 BROADWAY. 

i. 8 6 7 . 



Is not the same reason available in theology and in politics ? . . . 
Will you follow truth but to a certain point? — Burke's Vindication 
of jfaticral Society. 

The first author who stated fairly the connexion between the evi- 
dence of testimony and the evidence of experience, was Hume, in his 
Essay on Mikacles ; a work abounding in maxims of great use in 
the conduct of life. — Edinburgh Review, Sept. 1814, p. 323. 



PEEFACE 

Several of the readers of this Uttle work have de- 
rived much aniusement from the mistakes of others 
respecting its nature and object. It has been by some 
represented as a serious attempt to inculcate universal 
scepticism ; while others have considered it as a jeu 
d'esprit, &c. The Author does not, however, design 
to entertain his readers with accounts of the mistakes 
which have arisen respecting it ; because many of 
them, he is convinced, would be received with incre- 
dulity ; and he could not, without an indelicate ex- 
posure of individuals, verify his anecdotes. 

But some sensible readers have complained of 
the difficulty of determining what they are to be- 
lieve. Of the existence of Buonaparte, indeed, they 
remained fully convinced ; nor, if it were left doubt- 
ful, would any important results ensue ; but if they 
can give no satisfactory reason for their conviction, 



6 PREFACE. 

how can they know, it is asked, that they may not be 
mistaken as to other points of greater consequence, 
on which they are no less fiilly convinced, but on 
which all men are not agreed ? The Author has ac- 
cordingly been solicited to endeavour to frame some 
canons which may furnish a. standard for determining 
what evidence is to be received. 

This he conceives to be impracticable, except to 
that extent to which it is accomplished by a sound 
system of Logic ; including under that title, a portion 
— that which relates to the " Laws of Evidence " — of 
what is sometimes treated of under the head of 
" Rhetoric." But the full and complete accomphsh- 
ment of such an object would confer on man the un- 
attainable attribute of infallibility. 

But the difficulty complained of, he conceives to 
arise, in many instances, from men's misstating the 
grounds of their own conviction. They are convinced, 
indeed, and perhaps with very sufficient reason ; but 
they imagine this reason to be a different one from 
what it is. The evidence to which they have assented 
is applied to their minds in a different manner from 
that in which they believe it is — and suppose it ought 
to be — applied. And when challenged to defend and 
justify their ov/n belief, they feel at a loss, because 



PREFACE. 7 

they are attempting to maintain a position which is 
not in fact that in which their force hes. 

For a development of the nature, the consequen- 
ces and the remedies of this mistake, the reader is 
referred to " Hinds on Inspiration," pp. 30 — 46. If 
such a development is to be found in any earlier 
works, the Author of the following pages at least has 
never chanced to meet with any attempt of the kind.* 

It has been objected, again, by some persons of 
no great logical accm'acy of thought, that as there 
would not be any moral blame imputable to one who 
should seriously disbelieve, or doubt, the existence of 
Buonaparte, so neither is a rejection of the Scripture 
histories to be considered as implying anything mor- 
ally culpable. 

The same objection, such as it is, would apply 
equally to many of the Parables of the New Testa- 
ment. It might be said, for instance, that as a wo- 
man who should decline taking the trouble of search- 
ing for her lost " piece of silver," or a merchant who 
should neglect making an advantageous purchase of 
a " goodly pearl," woidd be guilty of no moral wrong, 
it must follow that there is nothing morally wrong in 

* See Elements of Rhetoric, p. i. eh. 2, § 4. 



8 PREFACE. 

neglecting to reclaim a lost sinner, or in rejecting the 
Gospel, &c. 

But any man of common sense readily perceives 
that the force of these parables consists in the cir- 
cumstance that men do not usually show this care- 
lessness about temporal goods; and, therefore, are 
guilty of gross and culpable inconsistence/ if they are 
comparatively careless about what is far more impor- 
tant. 

So, also, in the present case. If any man's mind 
were so constituted as to reject the same evidence in 
all matters alike — if, for instance, he really doubted 
or disbelieved the existence of Buonaparte, and con- 
sidered the Egyptian pyramids as fabulous, because, 
forsooth, he had no " experience " of the erection of 
such huge structures, and had experience of travellers 
telling huge lies — he would be regarded, perhaps, as 
very silly, or as insane, but not as morally culpable. But 
if (as is intimated in the concluding sentence of this 
work) a man is influenced in one case by objections 
which, in another case, he would deride, then he 
stands convicted of being unfairly biassed by his pre- 
judices. 

It is only necessary to add, that as this work first 
appeared in the year 1819, many things are spoken 



PREFACE. 9 

of in the present tense, to whicli the past would now 
be appHcable. 

A Postscript was added to the third edition, which 
was pubhshed soon after the accounts of Buonaparte's 
death reached us; and another at the time of the 
supj)osed removal of his remains. A third, in refer- 
ence to more recent occurrences, was added to the 
ninth edition. 



HISTOEIC DOUBTS 



BELATIVS TO 



NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. 



Long as the public attention has been occupied 
by the extraordinary personage from whose 
ambition we are supposed to have so narrowly 
escaped, the subject seems to have lost scarcely 
anything of its interest. We are still occupied 
in recounting the exploits, discussing the char- 
acter, inquiring into the present situation, and 
even conjecturing as to the future prospects 
of Napoleon Buonaparte. 

E'or is this at all to be wondered at, if we 
consider the very extraordinary nature of those 
exploits, and of that character; their great- 



12 raSTOKIC DOUBTS RELATIVE TC 

ness and extensive importance, as well as the 
unexampled strangeness of the events, and 
also that strong additional stimulant, the mys- 
terious uncertainty that hangs over the char- 
acter of the man. If it be doubtful whether 
any history (exclusive of such as is confessedly 
fabulous) ever attributed to its hero such a 
series of wonderful achievements compressed 
into so small a space of time, it is certain that 
to no one were ever assigned so many dis- 
similar characters. 

It is true, indeed, that party prejudices 
have drawn a favourable and an unfavourable 
portrait of almost every eminent man ; but 
amidst all the diversities of colouring, some- 
thing of the same general outline is always 
distinguishable. And even the virtues in the 
one description bear some resemblance to the 
vices of another : rashness, for instance, will 
be called courage, or courage, rashness ; hero- 
ic firmness, and obstinate pride, will corres- 
pond in the two opposite descriptions ; and 
in some leading features both will agree. 
Neither the friends nor the enemies of Philip 



NAPOLEON BIIONAPAKTE. 13 

of Macedon, or of Julius Caesar, evei' ques- 
tioned their coueage, or their MiLnAET skill. 
With Buonaparte, however, it has been 
otherwise. This obscure Corsican adventurer, 
a man, according to some, of extraordinary 
talents and courage, according to others, of 
verj moderate abilities, and a rank coward, 
advanced rapidly in the French army, ob- 
tained a high command, gained a series of 
important victories, and, elated by success, 
embarked in an expedition against Egypt ; 
which was planned and conducted, according 
to some, with the most consummate skill, 
according to others, with the utmost wildness 
and folly ; he was unsuccessful, however ; and 
leaving the army of Egypt in a very distress- 
ed situation, he returned to France, and found 
the nation, or at least the army, so favourably 
disposed towards him, that he was enabled, 
with the utmost ease, to overthrow the exist- 
ing government, and obtain for himself the 
supreme power; at first under the modest 
appellation of Consul, but afterwards with 
the more sounding title of Emperor. While 



14 HISTOBIC DOUBTS RELATIVE TO 

in possession of this power, he overthrew the 
most powerful coalitions of the other Euro- 
pean States against him ; and though driven 
from the sea by the British fleets, overran 
nearly the whole continent, triumphant ; fin- 
ishing a war, not unfrequently, in a single 
campaign, he entered the capitals of most of 
the hostile potentates, deposed and created 
Kings at his pleasure, and appeared the 
virtual sovereign of the chief part of the 
continent, from the frontiers of Spain to those 
of Russia. Even those countries we find him 
invading with prodigious armies, defeating 
their forces, penetrating to their capitals, and 
threatening their total subjugation. But at 
Moscow his progress is stopped : a winter of 
unusual severity, co-operating with the eflforts 
of the Russians, totally destroys his enormous 
host: and the German sovereigns throw ofiP 
the yoke, and combine to oppose him. He 
raises another vast army, which is also ruined 
at Leipsic; and again another, with which, 
like a second AntsBus, he for some time main- 
tains himself in France ; but is finally defeat- 



NAPOLEON BUONAPABTE. 15 

ed, deposed, and banislied to the island of 
Elba, of which the sovereignty is conferred 
on him. Thence he returns, in abont nine 
months, at the head of 600 men, to attempt 
the deposition of Eang Louis, who had been 
peaceably recalled ; the French nation declare 
in his favour, and he is reinstated without a 
struggle. He raises another great army to 
oppose the allied powers, which is totally 
defeated at Waterloo ; he is a second time 
deposed, surrenders to the British, and is 
placed in confinement at the island of St. 
Helena. Such is the outline of the eventful 
history presented to us ; in the detail of which, 
however, there is almost every conceivable 
variety of statement ; while the motives and 
conduct of the chief actor are involved in still 
greater doubt, and the subject of still more 
eager controversy. 

In the midst of these controversies, the 
preliminary question, concerning the existence 
of this extraordinary personage, seems never 
to have occurred to any one as a matter of 



16 HISTOEIC DOUBTS RELATIVE TO 

doubt ; and to show even the smallest hesi- 
tation in admitting it, would probably be re- 
garded as an excess of scepticism ; on the 
ground that this point has always been taken 
for granted by the disputants on all sides, 
being indeed implied by the very nature of 
their disputes. 

But is it in fact found that undisjputed 
points are always such as have been the most 
carefully examined as to the evidence on 
which they rest? that facts or principles 
which are taken for granted, without contro- 
versy, as the common basis of opposite opin- 
ions, are always themselves established on 
sufficient grounds ? On the contrary, is not 
any such fundamental point, from the very 
circumstance of its being taken for granted at 
once, and the attention drawn off to some 
other question, likely to be admitted on in- 
sufficient evidence, and the flaws in that evi- 
dence overlooked ? Experience will teach us 
that such instances often occur : witness, the 
well-known anecdote of the Royal Society; 
to whom King Charles II. proposed as a ques- 



NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. 17 

tion, whence it is that a vessel of water re- 
ceives no addition of weight from a live fish 
being put into it, though it does, if the fish be 
dead. Various solutions, of great ingenuity, 
were proposed, discussed, objected to, and de- 
fended ; nor w^asittill they had been long be- 
wildered in the inquiry, that it occurred to 
them to try the exjperiinent y by which they 
at once ascertained, that the phenomenon 
which they were striving to account for, — 
which was the acknowledged basis and sub- 
stratum, as it were, of their debates, — had no 
existence but in the invention of the witty 
monarch." 

Another instance of the same kind is so 

* "A report is spread, (says Voltaire in one of his 
works,) that tliere is, in some country or other, a giant a3 
big as a mountain ; and men presently fall to hot disputing 
concerning the precise length of his nose, the breadth of his 
thumb, and otlier particulars, and anathematize each other 
for heterodoxy of belief concerning them. In the midst of 
all, if some bold sceptic ventures to hint a doubt as to the 
existence of this giant, all are ready to join against him, and 
tear him to pieces." This looks almost like a prophetic alle« 
^oiy relating to the gijrantic Nnpoleon. 



18 HISTOEIO DOUBTS RELATIVE TO 

verv remarkable that I cannot forbear men* 
tioning it. It was objected to the system of 
Copernicus when first brought forward, that 
if the earth turned on its axis as he represent- 
ed, a stone dropped from the summit of a 
tower would not fall at the foot of it, but at a 
great distance to the west ; m the same man- 
ner as a stone drojpjjyed froTn the mast-head of 
a ship infidl sail^ does not fall at the foot of 
the mast, hut towards the stern. To this it 
was answered, that a stone being a ^art of 
the earth obeys the same laws, and moves 
with it ; whereas, it is no part of the ship ; 
of which, consequently, its motion is indepen- 
dent. This solution was admitted by some, 
but opposed by others ; and the controversy 
went on with spirit ; nor was it till one hun- 
dred years after the death of Copernicus, that 
the experiment being tried, it was ascertained 
that the stone thus dropped from the head of 
the mast does fall at the foot of it ! * 

* Ovras aTaXaiTTOipos to7s Tro\\o7s t] C^Trfffis .rrjs oA.'q- 
^flas, Koi iirl roi 'droLfia ixaWou rp^TTovrai. Thiicyd. b. i. c. 20. 



NAPOLEON BtONAPAllTE. 19 

Let it be observed that I am not now im- 
pugning any one particular narrative ; but 
merely showing generally, that what is un- 
questioned is not necessarily unquestionable ; 
since men will often, at the very moment 
when they are accurately sifting the evidence 
of some disputed point, admit hastily, and on 
the most insufficient grounds, what they have 
been accustomed to see taken for granted. 

The celebrated Hume* has pointed out, 
also, the readiness with which men believe, 
on very slight evidence, any story that pleases 
their imagination by its admirable and mar- 
vellous character. Such hasty credulity, how- 
ever, as he well remarks, is utterly unworthy 
of a philosophical mind ; which should rather 

* " With what greediness are the miraculous accounts of 
travellers received, their descriptions of sea and land mon- 
sters, their relations of wonderful adventures, strange men, 
and vmconth manners 1 " — Hume's Essay on Miracles, p. 1*79^ 
12mo; p. 185, 8vo, 1767 ; p. 117, Bvo, 1817. 

N". B. — In order to give every possible facility of refer- 
ence, three editions of Hume's Essays have been generally 
employed; a 12mo, London, 1756, and two Bvo editions. 



20 HISTORIC DOUBTS KELATIVE TO 

suspend its judgment the more, in proportion 
to the strangeness of the account, and yield to 
none bat the most decisive and unimpeacha- 
ble proofs. 

Let it, then, be allowed us, as is surely 
reasonable, just to inquire with respect to the 
extraordinary story I have been speaking of, 
on what evidence we believe it. We shall be 
told that it is notorious ; i. e., in plain English, 
it is verv muGh talked about. But as the gen- 
erality of those who talk about Buonaparte 
do not even pretend to speak from their own 
authority^ but merely to repeat what they 
have casually heard, we cannot reckon them 
as in any degree witnesses ; but must allow 
ninety-nine hundredths of what we are told 
to be mere hearsay, which would not be at 
all the more worthy of credit even if it were 
repeated by ten times as many more. As for 
those who profess to have personally known 
N^apoleon Buonaparte, and to have themselces 
witnessed his transactions, I write not for 
them : if any such there le^ who are inwardly 
conscious of the tnith of all they relate, I have 



NAPOLEON BUONAPAKTE. 21 

nothing to say to them, but to beg that they 
will be tolerant and charitable towards their 
neighbours, who have not the same means of 
ascertaining the truth, and who may well be 
excused for remaining doubtful about such 
extraordinary events, till most unanswerable 
proofs shall be adduced. " I would not have 
believed such a thing, if I had not seen it," is 
a common preface or appendix to a narrative 
of marvels ; and usually calls forth from an 
intelligent hearer the appropriate answer, 
" JSFo more will /." 

Let us, however, endeavour to trace up 
some of this hearsay evidence as far towards 
its source as we are able. Most persons would 
refer to the newspajpers as the authority from 
which their knowledge on the subject was 
derived ; so that, generally speaking, we may 
say it is on the testimony of the newspapers 
that men believe in the existence and exploits 
of Napoleon Buonaparte. 

It is rather a remarkable circumstance, 
that it is common to hear Englishmen speak 
of the impudent fabrications of foreign news- 



22 HISTORIC DOUBTS EELATIVr TO 

papers, and express wonder that any one can 
be found to credit them ; while they conceive 
that, in this favoured land, the liberty of the 
press is a sufficient security for veracity. It 
is true they often speak contemj3tuously of 
such " newspaper stories " as last but a short 
time ; indeed they continually see them con- 
tradicted within a day or two in the same 
paper, or their falsity detected by some jour- 
nal of an opposite party ; but still whatever 
is long adhered to and often rejpeated^ espe- 
cially if it also appear in several different pa- 
pers (and this, though they notoriously copy 
from one another), is almost sure to be gen- 
erally believed. Whence this high respect 
which is practically paid to newspaper autho- 
rity ? Do men think, that because a witness 
has been perpetually detected in falsehood, 
he may therefore be the more safely believed 
whenever he is ^c>z^ detected ? or does adher- 
ence to a story, and frequent repetition of it, 
render it the more credible ? On the con- 
trary, is it not a common remark in other 
cases, that a liar will generally stand to and 



NAPOLEON BTJONAPAETE. 23 

reiterate what he lias or ce said, merely be- 
cause he has said it ? 

Let us, if possible, divest ourselves of this 
superstitious veneration for everything that 
appears " in print," and examine a little 
more systematically the e^ddence which is 
adduced. 

I suppose it will not be denied, that the 
three following are among the most impor- 
tant points to be ascertained, in deciding on 
the credibility of witnesses ; first, whether 
they have the means of gaining correct infor- 
mation j secondly, whether they have any 
interest in concealing truth, or propagating 
falsehood; and thirdly, whether they agree 
in their testimony. Let us examine the pre- 
sent witnesses upon all these points. 

Eirst, what means have the editors of 
newspapers for gaining correct information? 
We know not, except from their own state- 
ments. Besides what is copied from other 
journals, foreign or British, (which is usually 
more than three-fourths of the news pub- 



24 HISTORIC DOUBTS RELATIVE TO 

lished,)* tliey profess to refer to tlie autliority 
of certain " private correspondents " abroad ; 
who tliese correspondents are, what means 
they have of obtaining information, or whether 
they exist at all, we have no way of ascertain- 
mg. We find ourselves in the condition of 
the Hindoos, who are told by their priests 



* "Suppose a fact to be transmitted through twenty 
persons ; the first commuuieating it to the second, the 
second to the third, <fec,, and let the probability of each 
testimony be expressed by nine-tenths, (that is, suppose 
that of ten reports made by each Avitness, nine only are 
true,) then, at every time the story passes from one wit- 
ness to another, the evidence is reduced to nine-tenths of 
what it was before. Thus, after it has passed tlirough the 
whole twenty, the evidence will be found to be less thau 
one-eighth."- — La Place, Essai Philosophique sur les Pro- 
babilites. 

That is, the chances for the fact thus attested being true, 
will be, according to this distinguished calculator, less than 
one in eight. Yery few of the common newspaper stories, 
however, relating to foreign countries, could be traced, if 
the matter were carefully investigated, up to an actual eye- 
witness, even through twenty intermediate witnesses ; and 
many of the steps of our ladder would, I fear, prove but 
rotten ; few of the reporters would deserve to have one in 
ten fixed as the proportion of their false accounts. 



NAPOLEON BUOiN'APAKTE. 25 

that tlie earth stands on an elephant, and the 
elephant on a tortoise ; but are left to find 
out for themselves what the tortoise stands 
ou, cr whether it stands on anything at all. 

So much for our clear knowledge of the 
means of inforimation possessed by these wit- 
nesses ; next for the grounds on which we are 
to calculate on their veracity. 

Have they not a manifest, interest in cir- 
culating the wonderful accounts of N^apoleon 
Buonaparte and his achievements, w^hether 
true or false ? Few w^ould read newspapers 
if they did not sometimes find wonderful or 
important news in them ; and we may safely 
say that no subject w^as ever found so inex- 
haustibly interesting as the present. 

It may be urged, however, that there are 
several adverse political parties, of which the 
various public prints are respectively the 
organs, and who would not fail to expose 
each other's fabrications.^ Doubtless they 

* " I did not mention the difficulty of detecting a false 
hood in any private, or even public history, at the time and 
place where it is said to happen ; much more where tho 

2 



26 HISTORIC DOUBTS EEL ATI VE TO 

would, if they could do so without at the 
same time exposing theii' own / but identity 
of interests may induce a community of ope- 
rations up to a certain point. And let it be 
observed that the object of contention be- 
tween these rival parties is, who shall have 
the administration of public affairs, the con- 
trol of public expenditure, and the disposal 
of places : the question, I say, is not, whether 
the people shall be governed or not, but, hy 
which party they sliall be governed ; — not 
whether the taxes shall be paid or not, but 
who shall receive them. Now it must be ad- 
mitted, that Buonaparte is a political bugbear, 
most convenient to <2^2/ administration : "If 
you do not adopt our measures and reject 
those of our opponents, Buonaparte will be 
sure to prevail over you ; if you do not sub- 
mit to the Government, at least under our 

scene is removed to ever so small a distance , 

But the matter never comes to any issue, 

if trusted to the common method of altercation and debate 
and flying rumours." — Hume's Essay on Miracles, p. 195, 
12mo; pp. 200, 8vo. 1767 ; p. 127, 8vo. 1817. 



NAPOLEON BrONAPAKTE. 2Y 

administration, this formidable enemy will 
take advantage of your insubordination, to 
conquer and enslave you : pay your taxes 
cheerfully, or the tremendous Buonaparte 
will take all from you." Buonaparte, in 
short, was the burden of every song ; his re- 
doubted name was the charm which always 
succeeded in unloosing the purse-strings of 
the nation. And let us not be too sure,^ safe 
as we now think ourselves, that some occa- 
sion may not occur for again producing on 
the stage so useful a personage: it is not 
merely to naughty children in the nursery 
that the threat of being "given to Buona- 
parte " has proved effectual. 

It is surely probable, therefore, that, with 
an object substantially the same, all parties 
may have availed themselves of one common 
instrument. It is not necessary to suppose 
that for this pm*pose they secretly entered 
into a formal agreement ; though, by the way, 
there are reports afloat, that the editors of the 

* See the third Postscript appended to this edition. 



28 HISTORIC DOUBTS RELATIVE TO 

Coitrier and Horning CJironicle hold ami- 
cable consultations as to the conduct of their 
public warfare : I will not take upon me to 
say that this is incredible ; but at any rate it 
is not necessary for the establishment of the 
probability I contend for. ISTeither again 
would I imply that all newspaper editors are 
utterers of forged stones, " knowing them to 
be forged;" most likely the great majority 
of them publish what they find in other pa- 
pers with the same simplicity that their read- 
ers peruse it; and therefore, it must be ob- 
served, are not at all more proper than their 
readers to be cited as authorities. 

Still it will be said, that unless we sup- 
pose a regularly preconcerted plan, we must 
at least expect to find great discrepancies iu 
the accounts published. Though they might 
adopt the general outline of facts one from 
another, they would have to fill up the detail 
lor themselves ; and in this, therefore, we 
should meet with infinite and irreconcileable 
variety. 

[N'ow this is precisely the point I am tend- 



NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. 29 

ing to ; for tlie fact exactly accords with the 
above supposition ; the discordance and mu- 
tual contradictions of these witnesses being 
such as would alone throw a. considerable 
shade of doubt over their testimony. It is 
not in minute circumstances alone that the 
discrepancy apjDears, such as might be ex- 
pected to appear in a narrative substantially 
true ; but in very great and leading trans- 
actions, and such as are very intimately con- 
nected with the supposed hero. For instance, 
it is by no means agreed whetker Buonaparte 
led in person the celebrated charge over the 
bridge of Lodi, (for celebrated it certainly is, 
as well as the siege of Troy, whether either 
event ever really took place or no,) or was 
safe in the rear, while Augereau performed 
the exploit. The same doubt hangs over the 
charge of the French cavalry at Waterloo. 
The peasant Lacosto, Avho professed to have 
been Buonaparte's guide on the day of battle, 
and who earned a fortune by detailing over 
and over again to visitors all the particulars 
of what the great man said and did up to the 



30 HISTOKIC DOUBTS KELATIVE TO 

nioment of fliglit, — this same Lacoste lias been 
suspected by others, besides me, of having 
never even been near the great man, and hav- 
ing fabricated the whole story for the sake of 
making a gain of the credulity of travellers. 
In the accounts that are extant of the battle 
itself, published by persons professing to have 
been present, the reader will find that there 
is a discrepancy of three or four hours as to 
the time when the battle began ! — a battle, 
be it remembered, not fought with javelins 
and arrows, like those of the ancients, in 
which one part of a large army might be en- 
gaged, while a distant portion of the same 
army knew nothing of it ; but a battle com- 
mencing (if indeed it were ever fought at all) 
with \hQ firing of cannon^ which would have 
announced pretty loudly what was going on. 
It is no less uncertain whether or no this 
strange personage poisoned in Egypt an hos- 
pital-full of his own soldiers, and butchered in 
cold blood a garrison that had surrendered. 
But not to multiply instances ; the battle of 
Borodin/^, which is represented as one of the 



NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE, 31 

greatest ever fought, was iineqiiivocallj claim- 
ed as a victory by both parties ; nor is the 

q^uestion decided at this day. We have official 
accounts on both sides, circumstantially de- 
tailed, in the names of supposed respectable 
persons, professing to have been present on 
the spot ; yet totally irreconcileable. Both 
these accounts may be false ; but since one 
of them must be false, that one (it is no mat- 
ter which we suppose) proves incontrovertibly 
this important maxim ; that it is possible 
for a narrative — however circumstantial — 
however steadily maintained — however puMic, 
and however important, the events it relates — 
however grave the authority on which it is 
published — to he nevertheless an entire fabri- 
cation ! 

Many of the events which have been re- 
corded were probably believed much the 
more readily and firmly, from the apparent 
caution and hesitation with which they were 
at first published, — the vehement contradic- 
tion in our papers of many pretended French 
accounts, — and the abuse lavished upon them 



32 HISTOllIO DOUBTS KELATH'E TO 

for falsehood, exaggeration, and gasconade. 
But is it not possible, — is it not indeed per- 
fectly natural, — that the publishers even of 
known falsehood should assume this cautious 
demeanour, and this abhorrence of exaggera- 
tion, in order the more easily to gain credit ? 
Is it not also very possible, that those who 
actually believed what they published, may 
have suspected mere exaggeration in stories 
which were entire fictions f Many men have 
that sort of simplicity, that they think them- 
selves quite secure against being deceived, 
provided they believe on\j ^y^Tt of the story 
they hear ; when perhaps the whole is equally 
false. So that perhaps these simple-hearted 
editors, who were so vehement against lying 
bulletins, and so wary in announcing their 
great news, were in the condition of a clown, 
who thinks he has bought a great bargain of 
a Jew because he has beat down the price 
perhaps from a guinea to a crown, for some 
article that is not really worth a groat. 

With respect to the character of Buona- 
parte, the dissonance is, if ].^ossible. still gre^t* 



NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. 33 

er. According to some, lie was a wise, 
Immaiie, magnanimous hero ; others paint him 
as a monster of cruelty, meanness, and per- 
fidy : some, even of those who are most 
inveterate against him, speak very highly 
of his political and military ability ; others 
place him on the very verge of insanity. But 
allowing that all this may be the colouring 
of party-prejudice, (which surely is allowing 
a great deal,) there is one point to which such 
a solution will hardly apply : if there be any- 
thing that can be clearly ascertained in his- 
tory, one would think it must be the ])er8onal 
courage of a military man / yet here we are 
as much at a loss as ever ; at the very same 
times, and on the same occasions, he is de- 
scribed by different writers as a man of 
undaunted intrepidity, and as an absolute 
poltroon. 

"What, then, are we to believe ? If we are 
disposed to credit all that is told us, we must 
believe in the existence not only of one, but 
of two or three Buonapartes ; if we admit 
nothing but what is well-authenticated, we 

2* 



34: HISTOEIO DOTJETS RELATIVE TO 

sliall be compelled to doubt of tbe existence 
of any.* 

It appears, then, tbat those on wliose testi- 
mony the existence and actions of Buonaparte 
are generally believed, fail in all the most 
essential points on which the credibility of 
witnesses depends : first, we have no assur- 
ance that they have access to correct informa- 
tion ; secondly, they have an apparent interest 
in propagating falsehood ; and, thirdly, they 
palpably contradict each other in the most 
important points. 

Another circumstance which throws ad- 
ditional suspicion on these tales is, that the 
whig party, as they are called, — the warm 
advocates of liberty, and opposers of the 
encroachments of monarchical power, — ^have 
for some time past strenuously espoused the 

* "We entertain a suspicion concerning any matter of fact^, 
*' when the witnesses contradict each other ; when they arc 
of a suspicious character; when they have an inteY^est in 
what they affirm." — 'Rvwe!& Essay on Miracles, p. 11% 12mo; 
p. 176, 8vo, iVeT; p. 181, 8vo, 1817. 



NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. 35 

cause, and vindicated the character of Buo- 
naparte, who is represented hj all as having 
been, if not a tyrant, at least an absolute 
despot. One of the most forward in this cause 
is a gentleman, who once stood foremost in 
holding up this very man to public execra- 
tion, — who first published, and long maintain- 
ed against popular incredulity, the accounts 
of his atrocities in Egypt. JS'ow that such a 
course should be adopted for party-purposes, 
by those who are aware that the whole story 
is a fiction, and the hero of it imaginary, 
seems not very incredible ; but if they be- 
lieved in the real existence of this despot, I 
cannot conceive how they could so forsake 
their principles as to advocate his cause, and 
eulogize his character. 

After all, it may be exjDccted that many 
who perceive the force of these objections, 
will yet be loath to think it possible that they 
and the public at large can have been so long 
and so greatly imposed upon. And thus it is 
that the magnitude and boldness of a fraud 
becomes its best suppoi-t ; the millions who 



36 HISTORIC DOUBTS RELATIVE TO 

for SO many ages liave believed in Mahomet 
or Brahma, lean as it were on each other for 
support ; and not having vigonr of mind 
enough boldly to throw off vulgar prejudices, 
and dare be wiser than the multitude, ]3er- 
suade themselves that what so many have 
acknowledged must be true. But I call on 
those who boast their philosophical freedom 
of thought, and would fain tread in the steps 
of Hume and other inquirers of the like ex- 
alted and speculative genius, to follow up 
fairly and fully their own principles, and, 
throwing off the shackles of authority, to 
examine carefully the evidence of whatever 
is proposed to them, before they admit its 
truth. 

That even in this enlightened age, as it is 
called, a whole nation may be egregiously 
imposed upon, even in matters which inti- 
mately concern them, may be proved (if it 
has not been already proved) by the following 
instance: it was stated in the newspapers, 
that, a month after the battle of Trafalgar, an 
English officer, who had been a prisoner of 



NAPOLEON BUONAPAETE. 37 

war, and was exchanged, returned to tliis 
country from France, and beginning to con- 
dole with his countrymen on the terrible 
defeat they had sustained, was infinitely aston- 
ished to learn that the battle of Trafalgar 
was a splendid Victory : he had been assured, 
he said, that in that battle the English had 
been totally defeated ; and the French were 
fully and universally persuaded that such was 
the fact. 1^0 w if this report of the belief of 
the French nation was not true, the British 
public were completely imposed upon ; if it 
were true, then both nations were, at the same 
time, rejoicing in the event of the same battle, 
as a signal victory to themselves ; and conse- 
quently one or other, at least, of these nations 
must have been the dupes of their govern- 
m'ent : for if the battle was never fought at 
all, or was not decisive on either side, in that 
case IjotTi parties were deceived. This in- 
stance, I conceive, is absolutely demonstrative 
of the point in question. 

" But what shall we say to the testimony 
of those many respectable persons who went 



38 HISTOEIC DOUBTS RELATIVE TO 

to Plymouth on purpose, and saw Buonaparte 
with their own eyes? must they not trust 
their senses ? " I would not disparage either 
the eyesight or the veracity of these gentle- 
men. I am ready to allow that they went to 
Plymouth for the purpose of seeing Buona- 
parte ; nay, more, that they actually rowed 
out into the harbour in a boat, and came 
alongside of a man-of-war, on whose deck they 
saw a man in a cocked hat, who, they loere 
told., was Buonaparte. This is the utmost 
point to which their testimony goes ; how 
they ascertained that this man in ^the cocked 
hat had gone through all the marvellous and 
romantic adventures with which we have so 
long been amused, we are not told. Did they 
perceive in his physiognomy, his true name, 
and authentic history? Truly this evidence 
is such as country peojDle give one for a story 
of apparitions ; if you discover any signs of 
incredulity, they triumphantly show the very 
house which the ghost haunted, the identical 
dark corner where it used to vanish, and per- 
haps even the tombstone of the person whose 



NAPOLEON BUONAPAETE. 39 

death it foretold. Jack Cade's nobility was 
supported bj the same irresistible kind of 
evidence : having asserted that the eldest son 
of Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March, was 
stolen by a beggar-woman, " became a brick- 
layer when he came to age," and was the 
father of the supposed Jack Cade ; one of his 
companions confirms the story, by saying, 
"Sir, he made a chimney in my father's 
house, and the bricks are alive at this day to 
testify it ; therefore, deny it not." 

Much of the same kind is the testimony 
of our brave countrymen, who are ready to 
produce the scars they received in fighting 
against this terrible Buonaparte. That they 
fought and were wounded, they may safely 
testify ; and probably they no less firmly he- 
lieve wdiat they were told respecting the cause 
in which they fought : it would have been a 
high breach of discipline to doubt it ; and 
they, I conceive, are men better skilled in 
handling a musket, than in sifting evidence, 
and detecting imposture. But I defy any one 
of them to come forward and declare, on his 



4:0 HISTOEIC DOUBTS RELATIVE TO 

own Jcnoioledge^ what was the canse in which 
he fought, — under w^hose commands the op- 
posed generals acted, — and whether the per- 
sons who issued those commands did really 
]3erform. the mighty achievements we are 
told of. 

Let those, then, who pretend to philo- 
sophical freedom of inquiry, — who scorn to 
rest their opinions on popular belief, and to 
shelter themselves under the example of the 
unthinking multitude, consider carefully, each 
one for himself, what is the evidence proj)os- 
ed to himself in particular, for the existence 
of such a person as Napoleon Buonaparte : — 
I do not mean, whether there ever was a per- 
son bearing that name^ for that is a question 
of no consequence ; but whether any such 
person ever performed all the wonderful 
things attributed to him ; — let him then 
weigh well the objections to that evidence, 
(of which I have given but a hasty and im- 
perfect sketch,) and if he then finds it amount 
to anything more than a probability, I have 
only to congratulate him on his easy faith. 



NAPOLEON EUONAPAETE. 41 

Eut the same testimony which would have 
great weight in establishing a thing intrinsi- 
cally probable, will lose part of this weight in 
proportion as the matter attested is improba- 
ble ; and if adduced in support of anything 
that is at variance with uniform experience,* 
will be rejected at once by all sound reason- 
ers. Let us then consider what sort of a 
story it is that is proposed to our acceptance. 
How grossly contradictory are the reports of 
the different authorities, I have already re- 
marked : but consider, by itself, the story told 
by any one of them ; it carries an air of fic- 
tion and romance on the very face of it All 
the events are great, and splendid, and mar- 
vellous ; f great armies, — great victories, — • 

* " That testimony itself derives all its force from expe- 
rience, seems very certain 

The first author, we believe, who stated fairly the connection 
between the evidence of testimony and the evidence of ex- 
perience, was Hume, in his Essays on Miracles, a woi-k . . 
abounding in maxims of great use in the conduct of life." 
Min. Review, Sept. 1814, p. 328. 

\ " Suppose, for instance, that the fact which the testi- 
mony endeavours to establish partakes of the extraordinary 



42 HISTOEIC DOUBTS RELATIVE TO 

great frosts, — great reverses, — " hair-breadth 
'scapes," — empires subverted in a few days ; 
everything happened in defiance of political 
calculations, and in opposition to the experi- 
ence of past times ; everything upon that 
grand scale, so common in Epic Poetry, so 
rare in real life ; and thus calculated to strike 
the imagination of the vulgar, and to remind 
the sober-thinking few of the Arabian Nights. 
Every event, too, has that roundness and 
completeness which is so characteristic of fic- 
tion ; nothing is done by halves ; we have 
convplete victories, — total overthrows, — entire 
subversion of empires, — perfect re-establish- 
ments of them, — crowded upon us in rapid 
succession. To enumerate the improbabilities 
of each of the several parts of this history, 
would fill volumes ; but they are so fresh in 
every one's memory, that there is no need of 

and the marvellous ; in that case, the evidence resulting from 
the testimony receives a diminution, greater or less in pro- 
portion as the fact is more or less unusual."- — Hume's Essay 
on Miracles, p 173, 12mo; p. 176, 8vo, 1767; p. 113, 8 vo, 
1817. 



NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. 43 

sucli a detail: let any judicious man, not 
ignorant of history and of human nature, re- 
volve them in his mind, and consider how far 
they are conformable to Experience,^ our best 
and only sure guide. In vain will he seek in 
history for something similar to this wonder- 
ful Buonaparte ; " nought but himself can be 
his parallel." 

Will the conquests of Alexander be com- 
pared with his ? They were effected over a 
rabble of effeminate, undisciplined barbarians ; 
else his progress would hardly have been so 
rapid : witness his father Philip, who was 
much longer occupied in subduing the com- 
paratively insignificant territory of the war- 
like and civilized Greeks, notwithstanding 
their being divided into numerous petty 
States, whose mutual jealousy enabled him to 
contend with them separately. But the 
Greeks had never made such progress in arts 

* " The ultimate standard bj which we determine all 
disputes that may arise is always derived from experience 
and observation." — ^Hume's Essay on Miracles, p. 172, 12mo; 
p. 175, 8vo, 1767; p. 112, 8vo, 1817. 



44: HISTORIC DOUBTS RELATIVE TO 

and arms as the great and powerful States of 
Europe, which Buonaparte is represented as 
so speedily overjDowering. His empire has 
been comjpared to the Eoman : mark the con- 
trast ; lie gains in a few years, that dominion, 
or at least control, over Germany, wealthy, 
civilized, and powerful, which the Romans in 
the plenitude of their power, could not obtain, 
during a struggle of as many centuries, 
against the ignorant half-savages who then 
possessed it ; of whom Tacitus remarks, that, 
up to his own time they had been "triumphed 
over rather than conquered." 

Another peculiar circumstance in the his- 
tory of this extraordinary personage is, that 
when it is found convenient to represent him 
as defeated, though he is by no means defeat- 
ed by halves, but involved in much more 
sudden and total ruin than the personages of 
real history usually meet with ; yet, if it is 
thought lit he should be restored, it is done 
as quickly and completely as if Merlin's rod 
had been employed. He enters Kussia with 
a prodigious army, which is totally ruined by 



NAPOLEON BUONAPAHTE. 45 

an unprecedented liard winter ; (everything 
relating to this man is prodigious and tmjpre- 
cedented •) yet in a few months we find him 
intrusted with another great army in Ger- 
many, which is also totally mined at Leipsic; 
making, inclusive of the Egyptian, the third 
great army thus totally lost : yet the French 
are so good-natured as to furnish him with 
another, sufficient to make a formidable stand 
in France; he is, however, conquered^ and 
p7'esented with the sovereignty of Elba j 
(surely, by the bye, some more prohahle way 
might have been found of disposing of him, 
till again wanted, than to place him thus on 
the very verge of his ancient dominions;) 
thence he returns to France, where he is re- 
ceived with open arms, and enabled to lose a 
fifth great army at Waterloo ; yet so eager 
were these people to be a sixth time led to 
destruction, that it was found necessary to 
confine hivi in'an island some thousand miles 
ofi', and to quarter foreign troops upon them^ 
lest they should make an insurrection in his 



4:6 HISTORIC DOUBTS RELATIVE TO 

favour ! * Does any one believe all this, and 
yet refuse to believe a miracle? Or rather, 
what is this but a miracle ? Is it not a viola- 
tion of the laws of nature ? for surely there 
are moral laws of nature as well as physical ; 
which though more liable to exceptions in 
this or that particular case, are no less true 
as general rules than the laws of matter, and 
therefore cannot be violated and contradicted 
heyond a certain pointy without a miracle. f 

Kal irov ri kuI fiporSiV (ppevas 
'THEP TON AAH0H AOrON 
AeSejSaXjUeVot i|/€uSe<rt ttolkIKols 
E^aTrarwvTi fiv^oi. Pind. Olymp. 1. 
f This doctrine, though hardly needing confirmation 
from authority, ia supported by that of Hume ; his eighth 
essay is, throughout, an argument for the doctrine of '* Phi- 
losophical necessity," drawn entirely from the general uni- 
formity, observable in the course of nature with respect to 
the principles of human conduct, as well as those of the ma- 
terial universe; from which uniformity, he observes, it ia 
that we are enabled, in both cases, to form our judgments 
by means of Experience : " and if," says he, " we would ex- 
plode any forgery in history, we cannot make use of a more 
convincing argument^ than to prove that the actions ascribed 



NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. 47 

^ay, there is this additional circumstance 
which renders the contradiction of Experience 
more glaring in this case than in that of the 

to any person, are directly contrary to the course of nature. 

. . . . The veracity of Qnin- 

tus Curtius is as suspicious when he describes the super- 
natural courage of Alexander, by which he was hurried on 
singly to attack multitudes, as when he describes his super- 
natural force and activity, by which he was able to resist 
them. So readily and universally do we acknowledge a 
uniformity in human motives and actions as loell as in the 
operaiio7is of body." — Eighth Essay, p. 131, 12mo; p. 85, 
8vo, 1817. 

Accordingly, in the tenth essay, his use of the term 
"miracle," after having called it " a transgression of a law 
of nature," plainly shows that he meant to include human 
nature: "no testimony," says he, "is sufficient to establish 
a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a nature that its 
falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it 
endeavours to establish." The term " prodigy " also (which 
he all along employs as synonymous with " miracle ") is ap- 
plied to testimony, in the same manner, immediately after . 
" In the foregoing reasoning we have supposed . . . . 

that the falsehood of that testimony woiild be a kind of 
prodigy." Now, had he meant to confine the meaning of 
"miracle," and "prodigy," to a violation of the laws of 
matter, the epithet " miraculous," applied even tlius hypo- 



4:8 HISTORIC DOUBTS KELA.TIYE TO 

miraculous liistories wliicli ingenious sceptica 
have held up to contempt : all the advocates 
of miracles admit that they are rare excep- 
tions to the general course of nature ; but 

theticall}'^, to false tesiimony, would be as unmeaning as the 
epithets "green" or "square;" the only possible sense in 
■which we can apply to it, even in imagination, the term 
"miraculous," is that of " highly improbable," — "contrary 
to those laws of nature which respect human conduct ;" and 
in this sense accordinglj- he uses the word in the very next 
sentence : " V/hen any one tells me that he saw a dead man 
restored to life, I immediately consider with myself whether 
it be more probable that this person should either deceive 
or be deceived, or that the fact which he relates should 
really have happened. I weigh the one miracle against the 
other." — Hume's Essay on Jfiracles, pp. 176, 177, 12mo; p. 
182, 8vo, 1767; p. 115, Svo, 1817. 

See also a passage above quoted from the same essay, 
where he speaks of " the miraciilous accounts of travellers ;" 
evidently using the word in this sense. 

Perhaps it was superfluous to cite authority for applying 
the term "miracle" to whatever is "highly improbable ;" 
but it is important to the students of Hume, to be fully 
aware that 7/e uses those two expressions as synonymous; 
aince otherwise they would mistake the meaning of that 
passage which he justly calls "a general maxim worthy of 
o!.ur attention." 



NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. 49 

contend tliat tliej must needs be so, on ac- 
count of tlie rarity of tliose extraordinary og- 
cadons wliicli are the reason of their being 
]3erformed : a Miracle, they say, does not hap- 
pen every day, because a Revelation is not 
given every day. It would be foreign to the 
present purpose to seek for arguments against 
this answer ; I leave it to those who are en- 
gaged in the controversy, to find a reply to 
it ; but my present object is, to point out that 
this solution does not at all apply in the pre- 
sent case. Where is the peculiarity of the 
occasion f What sufiicient reason is there for 
a series of events occurring in the eighteenth 
and nineteenth centuries, which never took 
place before? Was Europe at that period 
peculiarly weak, and in a state of barbarism, 
that one man could achieve such conquests, 
and acquire such a vast empire ? On the 
contrary, she was flourishing in the height of 
strength and civilization. Can the persever- 
ing attachment and blind devotedness of the 
French to this man,- be accounted for by his 
being the descendant of a long line of kings, 



50 HISTOEIC DOUBTS RELATIVE TO 

whose race was hallowed by hereditary vene- 
ration ? 'No ; we are told he was a low-born 
usurper, and not even a Frenchman ! Is it 
that he was a good and kind sovereign ? He is 
represented not only as an imperious and mer- 
ciless despot, but as most wantonly careless of 
the lives of his soldiers. Could the French 
army and people have failed to hear from the 
wretched survivors of his supposed Russian 
expedition, how they had left the corpses of 
above 100,000 of their comrades bleaching 
on the snowdrifts of that dismal country, 
whither his mad ambition had conducted 
liim, and where his selfish cowardice had 
deserted them ? Wherever we turn to seek 
for circumstances that may help to account 
for the events of this incredible story, we 
only meet with such as aggravate its impro- 
bability."-^ Had it been told of some distant 

* *' Events may be so extraordinary that they can hardly 
be established by testimony. We would not give credit to 
a man who would affirm that he saw a hundred dice thrown 
in the air, and that they all fell on the same faces." — ^din. 
Review, Sept. 1814, p. 32'7. 



NAPOLEON BUONAPAETE. 51 

coantrj, at a remote period, we could not 
have told what peculiar circumstances there 
might have been to render probable what 
seems to us most strange ; and yet in that 
case every philosophical sceptic, every free- 
thinking speculator, would instantly have re- 
jected such a history, as utterly unworthy of 
credit. What, for instance, would the great 
Hume, or any of the philosophers of his 
school, have said, if they had found in the 
antique records of any nation such a passage 
as this ? " There was a certain man of Cor- 
sica, whose name was J^apoleon, and he was 
one of the chief captains of the host of the 
French ; and he gathered together an army, 
and went and fought against Egypt : but 
when the king of Britain heard thereof, he 
sent ships of war and valiant men to fight 
against the French in Egypt. So they warred 
against them, and prevailed, and strengthened 
the hands of the rulers of the land against the 
French, and drave away ]^apoleon from be- 

Let it be observed, that tbe instance here given is miTa- 
culous in no other sense but that of being highly inprobable. 



52 HISTORIC DOUBTS RELATIVE TO 

fore the city of Acre. Then IsTapoleon left 
the captains and the army that were in Egypt, 
and fledj and returned back to France. So 
the French people took J^apoleon, and made 
him ruler over them, and he became exceed- 
ing great, insomuch that there was none like 
him of all that had ruled over France before." 
What, I say, would Hume have thought 
of this, especially if he had been told that it 
was at this day generally credited ? Would 
he not have confessed that he had been mis- 
taken in supposing there was a peculiarly 
blind credulity and prejudice in favour of 
everything that is accounted sacred i^ for 
that, since even professed sceptics swallow 
implicitly such a story as this, it appears 
there must be a still blinder prejudice in 
favour of everything that is not accounted 
sacred ? 

* "If the spirit of religion join itself to the love of won- 
der, there is an end of common sense ; and human testimony 
in these circumstances loses all pretensions to aiithority." — 
Hibie's Essay on Miracles, p. 179, 12mo; p. 185, 8vo. 1767; 
p. 117, 8vo. 1817. 



NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. 53 

Suppose, again, we found in this history 
8uch passages as the following : " And it 
come to pass after these things that INTapoleon 
strengthened himself, and gathered together 
another host instead of that which he had 
lost, and went and warred against the Prus- 
sians, and the Russians, and the Austrians, 
and all the rulers of the north country, which 
were confederate against him. And the ruler 
of Sweden, also, which was a Frenchman, 
warred against ^N^apoleon. So they went 
forth, and fought against the French in the 
plain of Leipsic. And the French were dis- 
comfited before their enemies, and fled and 
came to the rivers which are behind Leipsic, 
and essayed to pass over, that they might 
escape out of the hand of their enemies ; but 
they could not, for ^Napoleon had broken 
down the bridges ; so the people of the north 
countries came upon them, and smote them 
with a very grievous slaughter." 

'*'Then the ruler of Austria and all the 
rulers of the north countries sent Uiespeuo^ers 



54r HISTORIC DOUBTS KELATIVE TO 

unto ITapoleoii to speak peaceably unto him, 
saying, Why should there be war between us 
any more ? JSTow I^apoleon had put away his 
wife, and taken the daughter of the ruler of 
Austria to wife. So all the counsellors of 
Napoleon came and stood before him, and 
said. Behold now these kings are merciful 
kings ; do even as they say unto thee ; know- 
est thou not yet that France is destroyed? 
But he spake roughly unto his counsellors, 
and drave them out from his presence, neither 
would he hearken unto their voice. And 
when all the kings saw that, they warred 
against France, and smote it with the edge of 
the sword, and came near to Paris, which is 
the royal city, to take it : so the men of Paris 
went out, and delivered up the city to them. 
Then those kings spake kindly unto the men 
of Paris, saying. Be of good cheer, there shall 
no harm happen unto you. Then were the 
men of Paris glad, and said, E"apoleon is a 
tyrant ; he shall no more rule over us : also 
all the princes, the judges, the counsellors, 
and the captains wliom Is'apoleon had raised 



NAPOLEON BUONAPAKTE. 55 

up even from tlie lowest of the people, sent 
unto Lewis the brother of King Lewis, whom 
thej had slain, and made him king over 
France." 

" And when ISTapoleon saw^ that the king- 
dom Yf as departed from him, he said nnto the 
rulers wliich came against him, Let me, I 
pray you, give the kingdom nnto mv son: 
bnt they w^ould not hearken nnto him. Then 
he spake yet again, saying, Let me, I pray 
you, go and live in the island of Elba, which 
is over against Italy, nigh nnto the coast of 
France ; and ye shall give me an allowance 
for me and my household, and the land of 
Elba also for a possession. So they made 
him ruler of Elba." 



" In those days the Pope returned unto 
his own land. I^ow the French, and divers 
other nations of Europe, are servants of the 
Pope, and hold him in reverence ; but he is 
an abomination nnto the Britons, and to the 



56 IlISTOKIC DOUBTS RELATITE TO 

Prussians, and to the Russians, and to tlio 
Swedes. Howbeit tlie Frejicli had taken 
away all his lands, and robbed him of all 
that he had, and carried him away captive 
into France. But when the Britons, and the 
Prussians, and the Russians, and the Svredes, 
and the rest of the nations that were con- 
federate against France, came thither, they 
caused the French to set the Pope at liberty, 
and to restore all his goods that they had 
taken ; likewise they gave him back all his 
possessions ; and he went home in peace, and 
ruled over his own city as in times past." . . 



" And it came to pass when !N"apoleon had 
not yet been a full year at Elba, that he said 
unto his men of war that clave unto him. Go 
to, let us go back to France, and light against 
King Lewis, and thrust him out from being 
king. So he departed, he and six hundred 
men with him that drew the sword, and war- 
red against King Lewis. Then all the men 
of Belial gathered themselves together, and 



NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. 57 

said, God save i^apoleon. And when Lewis 
saw that, he fled, and gat him into tJje land 
of Batavia : and JSTapoleon rnled over France.'^ 
&c., &c., &c. 

Now if a free-thinking philosopher — one 
of those who advocate the canse of unbiassed 
reason, and despise pretended revelations — 
were to meet with such a tissue of absurdities 
as this in an old Jewish record, would he not 
reject it at once as too palpable an imposture^ 
to deserve even any inquiry into its evi- 
dence ? Is that credible then of the civilized 
Europeans now, which could not, if reported 
of the semi-barbarous Jews 3000 vears a^fo, 
be established by any testimony ? Will it be 

* "I desire any one to lay his hand upon his heart, and 
after serious consideration declare whether he thinks that the 
falsehood of such a book, supported by such testimony, would 
be more extraordinary and miraculous than all the miracles 
it relates." — Hume's -Essay on Miracles, p. 200, 12mo; p. 206, 
8vo, 1767; p. 131, 8vo, 1817. . 

Let it be borne in mind, that Hume (as I have above 
remarked) continually employs the term "miracle" and 
" prodigy " to signify anything that is highly improbable and 
eztraordbiary. 
3* 



58 HISTOEIC DOUBTS KELATIVE TO 

answered, that " there is nothing supernatural 
in all this ?" Why is it, then, that you object 
to what is siopernatural — that yon reject every 
account of 'miracles — if not because they are 
tmprobahle f Surely then a story equally or 
still more improbable, is not to be implicitly 
received, merely on the ground that it is not 
miraculous : though in fact, as I have already 
(in note, p. 34:) shown from Hume's authori- 
ty, it really is miraculous. The opposition to 
Experience has been proved to be as complete 
in this case, as in what are commonly called 
miracles ; and the reasons assigned for that 
contrariety by the defenders of the^tn^ cannot 
be pleaded in the present instance. If then 
philosophers, who reject every wonderful 
story that is maintained by priests, are yet 
found ready to believe everything else, how- 
ever improbable, they will surely lay them- 
selves open to the accusation brought against 
them of being unduly prejudiced against 
whatever relates to religion. 

There is one more circumstance which I 



NAPOLEON BUONAPAETE. 69 

cannot forbear mentioning, because it so much 
adds to tlie air of fiction wliicb pervades every 
part of this marvellous tale ; and that is, the 
nationality of it.* 

Buonaparte prevailed over all the hostile 
States in turn, excejpt England ; in the zenith 
of his power, his fleets were swept from the 
sea, hy England / his troops always defeat an 
equal, and frequently even a superior number 
of those of any other nation, excejpt the Eng- 
lish ; and with them it is just the reverse; 
twice, and twice only, he is personally en- 
gaged against an English commander^ and 
both times he is totally defeated ; at Acre, 
and at Waterloo ; and to crown all, England 
finally crushes this tremendous power, which 
had so long kept the continent in subjection 
or in alarm ; and to the English he surrenders 
himself prisoner ! Thoroughly national, to be 

* The wise lend a very academic faith to every report 
which favours the passion of the reporter, whether it mag- 
nifies his country, his family, or himself." — Hume's Essay 
en Miracles, p. 144, 12mo; p. 200, 8vo, 176Y ; p. 126, 8vo, 
1817. 



60' niSTOEIC DOUBTS RELATIVE TO 

Sure ! It may be till yeiy true ; but I would 
only ask, if a story had been fabricated for 
tlie express purpose of amusing the English 
nation, could it have been contrived more in- 
geniously? It would do admirably for an 
epic poem ; and indeed bears a considerable 
resemblance to the Iliad and the ^neid ; in 
which Achilles and the Greeks, JEneas and 
Trojans, (the ancestors of the Romans,) are so 
studiously held up to admiration. Buona- 
parte's exploits seem magnified in order to 
enhance the glory of his conquerors ; just as 
Hector is allowed to triumph during the ab- 
sence of Achilles, merely to give additional 
splendour to his overthrow by the arm of that 
invincible hero. Would not this circum- 
stance alone render a history rather siisjpi- 
cioiis in the eyes of an acute critic, even if 
it were not filled with such gross impro- 
babilities ; and induce him to suspend his 
judgment, till very satisfactory evidence (far 
stronger than can be found in this case) 
should be produced \ 



NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. 61 

Is it then too mucli to demand of the wary 
academic* a suspension of judgment as to the 
"life and adventures of E'apoleon Buona- 
parte ?" I do not pretend to decide positively 
that there is not, nor ever was, any such per- 
son ; but merely to propose it as a doubtfid 
point, and one the more deserving of careful 
investigation, from the very circumstance of 
its having hitherto been admitted without in- 
quiry. Far less would I undertake to decide 
what is, or has been, the real state of affairs. 
He who points out the improbability of the 
current story, is not bound to suggest an hy- 
pothesis of his own ; f though it may safely 
be affirmed, that it would be hard to invent 
any one more improbable than the received 

* " Nothing can be more contrary than such a philoso- 
phy" (the academic or sceptical) " to the supine indolence of 
the mind, its rash arrogance, its lofty pretensions, and its 
superstitious aredMXiij."— Fifth Essay, p. 68, 12mo; p. 41, 
8vo, ISlt. 

f See Hume's ^ssay on Miracles, pp. 189, 191, 195, 12mo; 
pp. 198, 197, 201, 202, 8vo, 1767 ; pp. 124, 125, 126, 8vo, 
1817. 



62 HISTOEIC DOUBTS RELATIVE TO 

one. One may surelj be allowed to hesitate 
in admitting the stories which the ancient 
poets tell, of earthquakes and volcanic erup- 
tions being caused by imprisoned giants, 
without being called upon satisfactorily to 
account for those phenomena. 

Amidst the defect of valid evidence under 
which, as I have already shown, we labour in 
the present instance, it is hardly possible to 
offer more than here and there a probable 
conjecture ; or to pronounce how much may 
be true, and how much fictitious, in the ac- 
counts presented to us. For it is to be ob- 
served that this case is much tnore 0]3en to 
sceptical doubts even than some miraculous 
histories ; for some of tJiem are of such a na- 
ture that you cannot consistently admit a part 
and reject the rest ; but are bound, if you are 
satisfied as to the reality of any one miracle, 
to embrace the whole system ; so that it is 
necessary for the sceptic to impeach the evi- 
dence of all of them, separately, and collect- 
ively : whereas here each single point re- 
quires to be established separately, since no 



NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. 63 

one of them aiitlienticates the rest. Sup- 
posing there be a state-prisoner at St. Helena, 
(which, by the way, it is acT^nowledged, many 
of the French disbelieve,) how do we know 
who he is, or w^hy he is confined there ? There 
have been state-prisoners before now, who 
were never guilty of subjugating half Europe, 
and whose offences have been very imper- 
fectly ascertained. Admitting that there have 
been bloody wars going on for several years 
past, w^hich is highly probable, it does not 
follow that the events of those wars were such 
as w^e have been told ; — that Buonaparte was 
the author and conductor of them ; — or that 
such a person ever existed. What disturb- 
ances may have taken place in the govern- 
ment of the French people, we, and even 
nineteen-tw^entieths of ihem^ have no means 
of learning but from imperfect hearsay evi- 
dence ; and how much credit they themselves 
attach to that evidence, is very doubtful. 
This at least is certain ; that a M. Berryer, 
a French advocate, has published memoirs, 
professing to record many of the events of the 



64: niSTORlC DOUBTS EELATIVE TO 

recent history of France, in wMcli, among 
otber tilings, lie states liis conviction tliat 
Buonaparte's escape from Elba was designi:d 

AND CONTRIVED BY THE EnGLISH GoVEENMENT.^ 

And we are assured by many travellers that 
this was, and is, commonly reported in 
Erance. 

E^ow that the French should believe the 
whole story about Buonaparte according .to 
this version of it, does seem utterly incredible. 
Let any one suppose them seriously believing 
that we maintained for many years a despe- 
rate struggle against this formidable emperor 
of theirs, in the course of which we expended 
such an enormous amount of blood and trea- 
sure as is reported; — that we finally, after 
encountering enormous risks, succeeded in 
subduing him, and secured him in a place of 
safe exile ; — and that, in less than a year after, 
we turned him out again, like a bag-fox, — or 
rather, a bag-lion, — for the sake of amusing 
ourselves by again staking all that was dear 

*See Edhibnrgh Review for October, 1842, p. 162. 



NAPOLEON BUONAPAKTE. 65 

to US on the event of a doubtful and bloody- 
battle, in which, defeat must be ruinous, and 
victory, if obtained at all, must cost us many 
thousands of our best soldiers. Let any one 
force himself for a moment to conceive the 
French seriously believing such a mass of 
absurdity ; and the inference must be that 
such a people must be prepared to believe 
anything. They might fancy their own coun- 
try to abound not only with I*^apoleons, but 
with dragons and centaurs, and "men whose 
heads do grow beneath their shoulders," or 
anything else that any lunatic ever dreamt of. 
K we could suppose the French capable of 
such monstrous credulity as the above suppo- 
sition would imply, it is plain their testimony 
must be altogether worthless. 

But on the other hand, suppose them to 
be aware that the British Government have 
been all along imposing on us, and it is quite 
natural that they should deride our credulity, 
and try whether there is anything too extra- 
vagant for us to swallow. And indeed, if 
Buonaparte was in fact altogether a phantom 



66 HISTOKIC DOUBTS EELATIVE TO 

conjured up by the British Ministers, then it 
is t7me that his escape from Elba really was, 
as well as the rest of his exploits, a contri- 
vance of theirs. 

But whatever may be believed by the 
French relative to the recent occurrences, in 
their own country, and whatever may be the 
real character of these occurrences, of this at 
least we are well assured, that there have 
been numerous bloody wars with France 
under the dominion of the BouTl)ons : and 
we are now told that France is governed by 
a Bourbon king, of the name of Lewis, who 
professes to be in the twenty-third year of his 
reign. Let every one conjecture for himself. 
I am far from pretending to decide who may 
have been the governor or governors of the 
French nation, and the leaders of their armies, 
for several years past. Certain it is, that 
when men are indulging their inclination for 
the marvellous, they always show a strong 
propensity to accumulate upon one individual 
(real or imaginary) the exploits of many ; be- 



NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. 6T 

sides multiplying and exaggerating these ex- 
ploits a thousandfold. Thns, the expounders 
of the ancient mythology tell ns there were 
several persons of the name of Hercnles, 
(either originally bearing that appellation, or 
having it applied to them as an honour,) 
whose collective feats, after being dressed up 
in a sufficiently marvellous garb, were attri- 
buted to a single hero. Is it not just possible, 
that during the rage for words of Greek deri- 
vation, the title of " ^Napoleon," (NairoXicov,) 
which signifies " Lion of the forest," may have 
been conferred by the popular voice on more 
than one favourite general, distinguished for 
irresistible valour? Is it not also possible 
that " BuoNA PAETE " may have been origi- 
nally a sort of cant term applied to the " good 
(i. e., the bravest, or most patriotic) part" 
of the French army, collectively ; and have 
been afterwards mistaken for the proper name 
of an individual P' 1 do not profess to sup- 

* It is well known with how much learning and inge- 
nnity the Kationalists of the German school have laboured 
to throw discredit on the litei-al interpretation of the nax> 



68 HISTORIC DOUBTS RELATIVE TO 

port this conjecture ; but it is certain that 
such mistakes may and do occur. Some 
critics have supposed that the Athenians im- 
agined Ajstastasis (" Eesurrection") to be a 
new goddess, in whose cause Paul was preach- 
ing. Would it have been thought anything 
incredible if we had been told that the an- 
cient Persians, who had no idea of any but a 
monarchical government, had supposed Aris- 
tocratia to be a queen of Sparta ? But we 
need not confine ourselves to hypothetical 

ratives, both of the Old and "New Testaments ; representing 
them as MYTHS, i. e., fables allegorieally describing some 
physical or moral phenomena — philosophical principles — 
systems, &c. — under the figure of actions performed by cer- 
tain ideal personages ; these allegories having been, after- 
wards, through the mistake of the vulgar, believed as his- 
tory. Thus, the real historical existence of such a person as 
the supposed founder of the Christian religion, and the acts 
attributed to him, are denied in the literal sense, and the 
whole of the evangelical history is explained on the " my- 
thical" theory. 

!N"ow it is a remarkable circumstance in reference to the 
point at present before us, that an eminent authoress of this 
century has distinctly declared that Ifapoleon Buonaparte 
was NOT A MAN, but & SYSTEM. 



NAPOLEON BUONAPAETE. 69 

cases ; it is positively stated that the Hin- 
doos at this day believe "the honourable 
East India Company" to be a venerable old 
lady of high dignity, residing in this country. 
The Germans, again, of the present day, de- 
rive their name from a similar mistake : the 
first tribe of them who invaded Ganl* assum- 
ed the honourable title of " Ger-man^^ which 
signifies " warriors ;" (the words, " war" and 
"guerre," as well as "man," which remains 
in our language unaltered, are evidently de- 
rived from the Teutonic,) and the Gauls ap- 
plied this as a name to the whole 7'aGe. 

However, I merely throw out these con- 
jectures without by any means contending 
that more plausible ones might not be sug- 
gested. But whatever supposition we adopt, 
or whether we adopt any, the objections to 

* Germaniae vocabulum recens et nuper additum ; quo- 
niam qui primi Khenum transgress! Gallos expiilerint, ac 
nunc Tungri, tunc Germani vocati sint : ita nationis nomen 
in nomen gentis evaluisse paullatim, ut omnes, pvimum a 
vietore ob metura, mox a seipsis invento nomine, Germani 
vocarentur. — Tacihif, de Mor. Germ. 



70 mSTOEIO BOUBTS KELATIVE TO 

the commonly received accounts will remain 
in their fall force, and imperiously demand 
the attention of the candid sceptic. 

I call upon those, therefore, who profess 
themselves advocates of free inquiry — who 
disdain to be carried along with the stream 
of popular opinion, and who will listen to no 
testimony that runs counter to experience, — 
to follow up their own principles fairly and 
consistently. Let the same mode of argu- 
ment be adopted in all cases alike ; and then 
it can no longer be attributed to hostile pre- 
judice, but to enlarged and philosophical 
views. If they have already rejected some 
histories, on the ground of their being strange 
and marvellous, — of their relating facts, un- 
precedented, and at variance with the estab- 
lished course of nature, — ^let them not give 
credit to another history which lies open to 
the very same objections, — ^the extraordinary 
and romantic tale we have been just consider- 
ing. If they have discredited the testimony 
of witnesses, who are said at least to have 
been disinterested, and to have braved perse* 



NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. ^1 

cutions and death in support of their assertions, 
— can these philosophers consistently listen to 
and believe the testimony of those who avow- 
edly get money by the tales they publish, and 
who do not even pretend that they incur any 
serious risk in case of being detected in a 
falsehood? If, in other cases, they have 
refused to listen to an account which has 
passed through many intermediate hands be- 
fore it reaches them, and which is defended 
by those who have an interest in maintaining 
it ; let them consider through how many, and 
what very suspicious hands, tJds story has 
arrived to them, without the possibility, as I 
have shown, of tracing it back to any decided- 
ly authentic source, after all ; — to any better 
authority, according to their own showing, 
than that of an unnamed and unknown foreign 
correspondent ; — and likewise how strong an 
interest, in every way, those who have hither- 
to imposed on them, have, in keeping up the 
imposture. Let them, in short, show them- 
selves as ready to detect the cheats and 
despise the fables of politicians, as of priests. 



72 HISTGEIC DOUBTS, ETC. 

But if tliey are still wedded to the popular 
belief in this point, let them be consistent 
enough to admit the same evidence in other 
cases, which they yield to in this. If, after 
all that has been said, they cannot bring 
themselves to doubt of the existence of ]^apo- 
leon Buonaparte, they must at least acknow- 
ledge that they do not apply to that question 
the same plan of reasoning which they have 
made use of in others ; and they are conse- 
quently bound in reason and in honesty to 
renounce it altogether. 



POSTSCRIPT 

TO THE THIRD EDITION". 



It may seem arrogant for an obscure and 
nameless individual to claim the glory of 
lia^ang put to death the most foiTnidable of 
all recorded heroes. But a shadowy cham- 
pion may be overthrown by a shadowy antag- 
onist. Many a terrific spectre has been laid 
by the beams of a halfpenny candle. And if 
I have succeeded in making out, in the fore- 
going pages, a probable case of suspicion, it 
must, I think, be admitted, that there is some 
ground for my present boast, of having hilled 
ISTapoleon Buonaparte. 

Let but the circumstances of the case be 
considered. This mighty Emperor, who had 

4 



74: POSTSCRIPT TO THE THIRD EDITIOK. 

been so long the bugbear of the civilized 
world, after having obtained successes and 
undergone reverses, such as never befell any 
(other at least) real potentate, was at length 
sentenced to confinement in the remote island 
of St. Helena : a measure which many per- 
sons wondered at, and many objected to, on 
various grounds ; not unreasonably supposing 
the illustrious exile to be a real person : but 
on the supposition of his being only a man of 
straw, the situation ' was exceedingly favour- 
able for keeping him out of the way of im- 
pertinent curiosity, when not wanted, and for 
making him the foundation of any new plots 
that there might be occasion to conjure up. 

About this juncture it was that the public 
attention was first invited by these pages, to 
the question as to the real existence of E'apo- 
leon Buonaparte. They excited, it may be 
fairly supposed, along with much surprise and 
much censure, some degree of doubt, and 
probably, of consequent inquiry. ISTo fresh 
evidence, as far as I can learn, of the truth of 
the disputed points, was brought forward to 



POSTSCRIPT TO THE THIED EDITION. Y5 

dispel these doubts. We heard, however, of 
the most jealous precautions being used to 
prevent any intercourse betv^een the formi- 
dable prisoner, and any stranger, who, from 
motives of curiosity, might wish to visit him. 
The "man in the iron mask" could hardly 
have been more rigorously secluded : and we 
also heard various contradictory reports of 
conversations between him and the few who 
were allowed access to him; the falsehood 
and inconsistency of most of these reports 
being proved in contemporary publications. 

At length, just about the time when the 
public scepticism respecting this extraordi- 
nary personage might be supposed to have 
risen to an alarming height, it was announced 
to us that he was dead! A stop was thus 
put, most opportunely, to all troublesome 
inquiries. I do not undertake to deny that 
such a person did live and die. That he was, 
and that he did, everything that is reported, 
we cannot believe, unless we consent to ad- 
mit contradictory statements ; but many of 
the events recorded, however marvellous, are 



76 POSTSCRIPT TO THE THIED EDITION. 

certainly not, wlien taken separately, physi- 
cally impossible. Bnt I would only entreat 
the candid reader to reflect what might natu- 
rally be expected, on the supposition of the 
surmises contained in the present work being 
well founded. Supposing the whole of the 
tale I have been considering to have been a 
fabrication, what would be the natural result 
of such an attempt to excite inquiry into its 
truth ? Evidently the shortest and most effec 
tual mode of eluding detection, w^ould be to 
Mil the phantom, and so get rid of him at 
once. A ready and decisive answer would 
thus be provided to any one in whom the 
foregoing arguments might have excited, sus- 
picions : " Sir, there can be no doubt that 
such a person existed, and performed what is 
related of him ; and if you wdll just take a 
voyage to St. Helena, you may see w^ith your 
own eyes, — not him indeed, for he is no longer 
living, — ^but his tor)ib : and wdiat evidence 
would you have that is more decisive ? " 

So much for his Death : as for his Life, — 
it is just published by an eminent writer: 



POSTSCRIPT TO THE THIRD EDITION. 7Y 

besides wliich, the shops will supply iis with 
abundance of busts and prints of this great 
man ; all striking likenesses — of one another. 
The most incredulous must be satisfied with 
this ! " Stat magni NOMINIS umbra ! " 

KOKXOMPAX. 



rOSTSCEIPT 

TO THE SEVENTH EDITION. 



Since the publication of the Sixth Edition of 
this work, the French nation, and the world 
at large, have obtained an additional evidence, 
to which I hope thej will attach as ranch 
weight as it deserves, of the reality of the 
wonderful history I have been treating of. 
The Great Nation, among the many indica- 
tions lately given of an heroic zeal like what 
Homer attributes to his Argive warriors, 
riaaa^at 'EAE'NH^ opfirj/jLard re crrovaxa^ 
T€, have formed and executed the design of 
bringing home for honourable interment the 
remains of their illustrious Chief. 

How many persons have actually inspect- 



80 POSTSCRIPT TO THE SEVENTH EDITION. 

ed these relics, I have not ascertained ; but 
that a real coffin, containing real bones, was 
brought from St. Helena to France, I see no 
reason to disbelieve. 

Whether future visitors to St. Helena will 
be shown merely the identicsil place in which 
Buonaparte was {said to have been) interred, 
or whether another set of real bones will be 
exhibited in that island, we have yet to 
learn. 

This latter supposition is not very improb- 
able. It was something of a credit to the 
island, an attraction to strangers, and a source 
of profit to some of the inhabitants, to possess 
so remarkable a relic; and this glory and 
advantage they must naturally wish to retain. 
If so, there seems no reason v/hy they should 
not have a Buonaparte of their own ; for there 
is, I believe, no doubt that there are, or were, 
several Museums in England, which, among 
other curiosities, boasted, each, of a genuine 
skull of Oliver Cromwell. 

Perhaps, therefore, we shall hear of several 
well-authenticated skulls of Buonaparte also, 



POSTSCRIPT TO THE SEVENTH EDITION. 81 

in the collections of different virtuosos, all of 
whom (especially those in whose own crania 
the " organ of wonder" is the most largely 
developed) will doubtless derive equal satis- 
ffikction from the relics they respectively 
possess. 



i» 



POSTSCKIPT 

TO THE NINTH EDITION. 



The Public has been of late mucli interested 
and not a little bewildered, by the accounts 
of many strange events, said to have recently 
taken place in France and other parts of the 
Continent. Are these accounts of such a 
character as to allay, or to strengthen and 
increase, such doubts as have been suggested 
in the foregoing pages ? 

We are told that there is now a E'apoleon 
Buonaparte at the head of the government of 
France. It is not, indeed, asserted that he is 
the very original Kapoleon Buonaparte him- 
self. The death of that personage, and the 
transportation of his genuine bones to France, 



84: POSTSCEIPT TO THE NINTH EDITION. 

had been too widely proclaimed to allow of 
his reappearance in his own proper person. 
But "uno avulso, non deficit alter." Like 
the Thibetian worshippers of the Delai Lama, 
(who never dies ; only, his sonl transmigrates 
into a fresh body), the French are so resolved, 
we are told, to be nnder a Buonaparte — 
whether that be (see note to p. 67) a man 
or "a system". — that they have found, it 
seems, a kind of new incarnation of this their 
grand Lama, in a person said to be the 
nephew of the original one. 

And when, on hearing that this personage 
now fills the high ofiice of President of the 
French Kepublic, we inquire (very naturally) 
how he came there, we are informed that, 
several years ago, he invaded France in an 
English vessel, (the English — as was observed 
in p. 64 — ^having always been suspected of 
keeping Buonaparte ready, like the winds in 
a Lapland witch's bag, to be let out on occa- 
sion,) at the head of a force, not, of six hun- 
dred men, like his supposed uncle in his 
expedition from Elba, but of fifty-five, (!) with 



'postscript to the ninth edition. 85 

whicli lie landed at Boulogne, proclaimed 
himself emperor, and was joined by no less 
than one man ! He was accordingly, we are 
told, arrested, brought to trial, and sentenced 
to imprisonment; but having, some years 
after, escaped from prison, and taken refage 
in England, {England again !) he thence re- 
turned to France : and so the French nation 
placed him at the head of the Government ! 

All this will doubtless be received as a 
very probable tale by those who have given 
full credit to all the stories I have alluded to 
in the foregoing pages. 



rosTsoErPT 

TO THE ELEVENTH EDITION. 



When any dramatic piece takes — as the phrase 
is — ^with the public, it will usually be repre- 
sented again and again with still-continued 
applause ; and sometimes imitation«i of it will 
be produced ; so that the same drama in sub- 
stance will, with occasional slight variations 
in the plot, and changes of names, long keep 
possession of the stage. 

Something like this has taken place with 
respect to that curious tragi-comedy — the 
scene of it laid in France — which has en- 
gaged the^ attention of the British public for 
about sixty years ; during which it has been 
*' exhibited to crowded houses '' — viz., coffee- 



88 POSTSCRIPT TO THE ELEVENTH EDmON. 

houses, reading-rooms, &c., with unabated 
interest. 

The outline of this drama, or series of 
diamas, may be thus sketched : 

Dramatis Personce, 

A. A King or other Sovereign. 

B. His Queen. 

C. The Heir apparent. 

D. E. F, His Ministers. 

G. H. 1. J. K. Demagogues. 

L. A popular leader of superior ingenuity, 
who becomes ultimately supreme ruler, under 
the title of Dictator, Consul, Emperor, King, 
President, or some other. 

Soldiers, Senators, Executioners, and other 
functionaries. Citizens, Fishwomen, &c. 

Soene^ Paris. 

(1.) The first Act of one of these dramas 
represents a monarchy, somewhat troubled 
by murmurs of disaffection, suspicions of con- 
spiracy, &c. 



POSTSCRIPT TO THE ELEVENTH EDITION. 89 

(2.) Second Act, a rebellion ; in wliicli 
ultimately the government is overthrown. 

(3.) Act the third, a provisional govern- 
ment established, on principles of liberty 
equality, fraternity, &c. 

(4.) Act the fourth, struggles of various 
parties for power, carried on with sundry in- 
trigues, and sanguinary conflicts. 

(5.) Act the fifth, the re-establishment of 
some form of absolute monarchy. 

And from this point we start afresh, and 
begin the same business over again, with sun- 
dry fresh interludes. 

All this is highly amusing to the English 
public to hear and read of; but I doubt 
whether our countrymen would like to be 
actual per/ormers in such a drama. 

Whether the French really are so, or 
whether they are mystifying us in the ac- 
counts they send over, I will not presume to 
decide. But if the former supposition be the 
true one, — if they have been so long really 
acting over and over again in their own per- 
sons such a drama, it must be allowed that 



90 POSTSCRIPT TO THE ELEVENTH EDITION. 

they deserve to be cliaracterized as they have 
been in the description given of cei'tain Eu- 
ropean nations : " an Englishman," it has 
been said, " is never happy but when he is 
miserable ; a Scotchman is never at home but 
when he is abroad ; an Irishman is never at 
]3eace but when he is fighting ; a Spaniard is 
never at liberty but when he is enslaved ; and 
a Frenchman is never settled but when he is 
engaged in a revolution." 

Besides the many strange and improbable 
circumstances in the history of Buonaparte 
that have been noticed in the foregoing 
pages, there are many others that have been 
omitted, two of which it may be worth while 
to advert to. 

One of the most incredible is the received 
account of the persons known as the "De- 
tenus." It is well known that a great num- 
ber of English gentlemen passed many years, 
m the early part of the present century, 
abroad; — by their own account, in France. 
Their statement was, that while travelling in 



POSTSCEIPT TO THE ELEVENTH EDITION. 91 

that country for their amusement as peacea- 
ble tourists, they were, on the sudden break- 
ing out of a war, seized by this terrible 
Buonaparte, and kept prisoners for about 
twelve years, contrary to all the usages of 
civilized nations, — to all principles of justice, 
of humanity, of enlightened policy ; many of 
them thus wasting in captivity the most im- 
portant portion of their lives, and having all 
their prospects blighted. 

iTow whether these persons were in real- 
ity exiles by choice, for the sake of keeping 
out of the way of creditors, or of enjoying the 
society of those they preferred to their own 
domestic circle, I do not venture to conjec- 
ture. But let the reader consider whether 
any conjecture can be more improbable than 
the statement actually made. 

It is, indeed, credible that ambition may 
prompt an unscrupulous man to make the 
most enormous sacrifices of human life, and 
to perpetrate the most atrocious crimes, for 
the advancement of his views of conquest. 
But that this great man — as he is usually 



92 POSTSCRIPT TO THE ELEVENTH EDITIOIT. 

reckoned even by adversaries — this hero ac- 
cording to some — this illustrious warrior, and 
mighty sovereign — should have stooped to be 
guilty of an act of mean and petty malice 
worthy of a spiteful old woman, — a piece of 
paltry cruelty which could not at all conduce 
to his success in the war, or produce anv 
effect except to degrade his country, and ex- 
asperate ours ; — this, surely, is quite incredi- 
ble. "Pizarro," says Elvira in Kotzebue's 
play, " if not always justly, at least act always 
greatly." 

But a still more wonderful circumstance 
connected with this transaction remains be- 
hind. A large portion of the English nation, 
and among these the whole of the Whig par- 
ty, are said to have expressed the most ve- 
hement indignation, mingled with compassion, 
at the banishment from Europe, and confine- 
ment in St. Helena, of this great man. JSTo 
considerations of regard for the peace and 
security of our own country, no dread of the 
power of so able and indefatigable a warrior, 
and so inveterate an enemy, should have in- 



POSTSCEIPT TO THE ELEVENTH EDITION. 93 

duced lis, the J tliouglit, to subject tWs for- 
midable personage to a confinement, wbich 
was far less severe than that to which he was 
said to have subjected such numbers of our 
countrymen, the harmless non-helligerenf 
travellers, whom (according to the story) he 
kidnapped in France, with no object but to 
gratify the basest and most unmanly spite. 

But that there is no truth in that story, 
and that it was not believed by those who 
manifested so much sympathy and indigna- 
tion on this great man's account, is sufficient- 
ly proved by that very sympathy and indig- 
nation. 

There are again other striking improba- 
bilities connected with the Polish nation in 
the history before us. Buonaparte is repre- 
sented as having always expressed the strong- 
est sympathy with that ill-used people; and 
they, as being devotedly attached to him, 
and fighting with the utmost fidelity and 
bravery in his armies, in which some of them 
attained high commands. [N'ow he had it 
manifestly in his power at one period (accord- 



94: POSTSCEIPT TO THE ELEVENTH EDITION. 

ing to the received accounts), with a stroke 
of his pen, to re-establish Poland as an inde- 
pendent state. For, in his last Russian war, 
he had complete occupation of the country 
(of which the population was perfectly friend- 
ly) ; the Russian portion of it was his by right 
of conquest ; and Austria and Prussia, then 
his allies, and almost his subjects, would 
gladly have resigned their portions in ex- 
change for some of the provinces they had 
ceded to France, and which were, to him, of 
little value, but, to them, important. And, 
indeed, Prussia was (as we are told) so tho- 
roughly humbled and weakened that he might 
easily have enforced the cession of Prussian- 
Poland, even without any compensation. 
And the re-establishment of the Polish king- 
dom would have been as evidently politic as 
it was reasonable. The independence of a 
faithful and devoted ally, at enmity with the 
surrounding nations — the very nations that 
were the most likely to combine (as they often 
had done) against him, — this would have 
given him, at no cost, a kind of strong garri- 



POSTSOEIPT TO THE ELEVENTH EDITION. 95 

son. to maintain his power, and keep his 
enemies in check. 

Yet this most obvious step, the history 
tells ns, he did not take ; but made flattering 
speeches to the Poles, used their services, and 
did nothing for them ! 

This is, alone, sufficiently improbable. 
But we are required moreover to believe that 
the Poles, — instead of execrating this man, 
who had done them the unpardonable wrong 
of wantonly disappointing the expectations he 
had, for his own purposes, excited, thus add- 
ing treachery to ingratitude — instead of this, 
continued to the last as much devoted to him 
as ever, and even now idolize his memory ! 
We are to believe, in short, that this Buona- 
parte, not only in his own conduct and ad 
ventures violated all the established rules ol 
probability, but also caused all other persons^ 
as many as came in contact with him, to act 
as no mortals ever did act before : may we 
not add, as no mortals ever did act at all ? 

Many other improbabilities might be add- 
ed to the list, and will be found in the com- 



96 POSTSCRIPT TO THE ELEVENTH EDmON. 

plete edition of that history, from which some 
extracts have been given in the foregoing 
pages, and which has been published (under 
the title of " Historic Certainties") by Aris- 
tarchns I^ewlight, with a learned commen- 
tary (not, indeed, adopting the views contain- 
ed in the foregoing pages, but) quite equal in 
ingenuity to a late work on the "Hebrew 
Monarchy." 



HISTOKIC CEETAINTIES 



EESPECTIXG- THE 



EAELY HISTORY OF AMERICA, 

DEVELOPED m A CRITICAL EXAMINATION 

OF THE BOOK OF THE CHRONICLES 

OF THE LAND OF ECNARF. 



REV. ARISTARCHUS NEWLIGHT, 

PHIL. DR. OF THE UNIVERSITY OF GIE3SEX ; CORRESPONDING MEMBEB 

OF THE THEOPHILANTIIROPIC AND PANTI80CRATICAL SOCIETIES 

OF LEIPSIC; LATE PROFESSOR OF ALL RELIGIONS IN 

SEVERAL DISTINGUISHED ACADEMIES 

AT HOME AND ABROAD, 

ETC., ETC., ETC. 



"Here, then, we have the rule: in cases where the details ot an 
adventure are obnoxious to criticism, and where its exterior mechanism 
is exaggerated — where the basis itself is not conformable to reason, or 
where it is obviously made to agree with pre-existing ideas — in these 
cases, I say, not onlj- the circumstances described Avith such precision, 
but the entire adventure, should be considered as non-historic. On 
the other hand, in those cases in which only the form of the narrative is 
impressed with the mythic character, whilst its basis is left untouched, 
It is possible to suppose an histoHo n u>cleu8.^'' — Strauss, Leben Jesu, 



THE LEARNED AND ENLIGHTENED PUBLIC 
OF EUROPE AND AMERICA, 

SPECIALLY 

TO THOSE EMINENT CRITICS, AT HOME AND ABROAD, 

WHOSE LABOURS UPON JEWISH HISTORY I HAVE HUMBLY MADK 

MY MODEL: 

TO 

Dr. W. M. LEBERECHT DE WETTE, 
Dr. D. F. STRAUSS, 
Mr. F. W. NEWMAN, 

THESE PAGES ARE INSCRIBED, 

BY THEIR FAITHFUL SERVANT, 

THE COMIMENTATOE, 
Sicily, April 1. 



ADYEETISEMEIS'T 

These " Chronicles " were first seen by me 
in ISTovember, 1850. The greater part of the 
MS. from which they are taken, was, how- 
ever, in possession of the person from whom 
I received them so early as 1814; the re- 
mainder in the ensuing year. Should any 
number of competent judges feel doubts con- 
cerning the great antiquity of these Chroni- 
cles, and their American origin, I am sure 
that all such doubts will be removed by an 
inspection of the original, which may then 
be reasonably demanded. 



HISTORIC CERTAINTIES. 



THE BOOK OF THE CHEONICLES OF 
THE LAND OF ECNAEF. 

Chap. I. 

Is the days of EaKOEG king of Xiatirb did 
king SivoL reign over Ecnarf, even as his 
fathers had reigned before him. The same 
was a just man and mercifuL And the 
people, even the Ecnaefiies, came and stood 
before Sivol, and said, Behold thy fathers 
made our yoke very grievous ; now therefore 
make thou the heavy yoke of thy fathers 
which they put upon us, lighter ; and give us 
statutes and ordinances that be righteous, like 
unto those of I^iatirb ; and we will serve thee ; 



104: HBTOEIC CEETAINTIES RESPECTING 

and the king did as they required. Then the 
EcNABFiTEs laid hands on king Sivol, and 
slew him and all his house, and all his great 
men, as manv as they could find. But some 
fled in shijjs, and gat them away to ]!!TiATrRB, 
and dwelt in ITiatieb. 

And the Ecnaefites said, Let us now have 
no king neither ruler over us, but let us do 
every one as seemeth right in his own eyes ; 
then shall we be free, and we will set free the 
other nations also. 

Then the king of ISTiatieb, and divers 
other kings, even the chief among all the 
rulers of Epoeue, made war with one accord 
against the Ecnaefites, because they had 
slain the king ; for they said, Lest our people 
also slay us. 

In those days the Ecnaj^fites were in a 
great strait: for they had chosen councils 
of elders, and set judges over them; and 
some of the people followed one judge and 
some another ; and they fought one against 
another many days. So the land was defiled 
with blood; for the Ecnaefites slew one 



THE EAKLY HISTORY OF AMERICA. 105 

another witli a great slaughter. Moreover 
there was a sore dearth in the land, and the 
people were greatly impoverished. And the 
princes of Eporue also came and fought 
against Ecnarf. So the Ecnarfites went out 
and fought against them, and smote them, 
and prevailed against them exceedingly on 
every side. So they enlarged their bonnda- 
ries greatly, over Ailatt to the south, and un- 
til thou come to the river Sunehr towards 
the sun-rising : and they smote the ITajviregs 
also that dwelt beyond Sunehr, and subdued 
ArvATAB and Aiteoleh, and divers other 
countries of Eporije. So the Ec^tarfites be- 
came a great people. 

And it came to pass that they oppressed 
the nations round about them very grievously, 
and caused them to pay tribute of corn, and 
cattle, and silver and gold. So those nations 
made a league together, and rose up against 
the Ecnarfites many times : but they were 
utterly discomfited, until they were brought 
very low. 

ISTevertheless, the Ecnaefttes prevailed not 

5* 



106 HISTORIC CEETA.INTIKS RESPECTING 

against the Kiatiebites, because tliej dwelt 
in an island, and tlie king of JSTiatikb also 
had exceeding many ships of war. Howbeit, 
when they fought on land, the Ecnaefites 
prevailed, but when they fought by sea, the 
NiATiKBiTES prevailed. 

Now there was a certain man of Akiseoo 
whose name was N^oel-opan : he was a 
mighty man of valour, and he was one of the 
chief captains of the host of the people of 
EcNAjRF. And he gathered together a great 
host, and went and fought against Sutpyge, 
and overcame the princes of the land, whom 
the ruler of YekPvTtt had set over it. And 
when the king of Niatirb heard thereof, he sent 
ships of war and valiant men to fight against 
the Ecnarfites in Sutpyge. And !Noel-opan 
drew nigh unto the city of Eroa and fought 
against it. But there were certain of the 
IsTiATiRBiTES therein, which strengthened the 
hands of the people of the city, and drove 
back I^OEL-oPAiT, and slew many of his people : 
so he fled from before that place. 

And after that, the great host of the IsTiat- 



THE EARLY HISTORY OF AMERICA. 107 

IRBITES came to Sutpyge, and warred against 
the EcNARFriES that were there; and over- 
threw them, and smote them with a great 
slaughter, and took them captive, nntil they 
had left them none remaining. Thus were 
the Ec:N"ARFnES destroyed ont of Sutpyge. 
Howbeit I^oel-opan had left the captains and 
the army that were in Stjtpyge, and fled, and 
returned back to Ecnarf. Then the Ecnarf- 
ITES took I^OEL-OPA^, and made him ruler 
over them. So I^oel-opan became exceeding 
great, inasmuch that there was none like him, 
of all that had ruled over Ecnarf before him. 



Chap. n. 



Now it came to pass that when I^oel-opan 
was made ruler of Ecnarf, he sent a letter 
unto the king of IjTiatirb, saying. Let us now 
make peace. But the king said. Thou art a 
rebel and a murderer ; I will have no peace 



108 HISTORIC CEETAINTIES RESPECTING 

with thee. Howbeit after a time thej made 
peace together. 

But when the king of Niatirb saw that 
!NoEL-oPAN waxed exceeding strong, he stirred 
up the other princes of Eporue, and they 
fought against Ecnarf both by sea and land. 
Tlien was ISToel-opan wroth, and he gathered 
together a very great host, and built ships, 
and said. Surely I will bring an army against 
thee across the sea, and will smite thee and 
thy people with the edge of the sword, and 
take their goods for a prey. JSTevertheless he 
came not ; for the ships of E'iatirb kept watch 
round all the coasts of Ecnarf, that none 
might come in or go out. And the E"iatirbitb 
ships prevailed against the Ecnarfite ships, 
and overthrew them utterly. But ISToel-opAjst 
smote all the country of his enemies that was 
on that side of the sea, and smote them with 
the edge of the sword ; his eye did not pity 
them. And he took their fenced cities, and 
made his chief captains, and those of his own 
house, rulers in the countries which he sub- 
dued ; and lie made their yoke verv grievous. 



THE EARLY HISTORY OF AMEEICA. 109 

ITow there was peace between N'oel-opait, 
ruler of Ecnaef, and Zednankef, king of 
ISTiAPs. And ]^0EL-0PAN said nnto Zednan- 
EEF, Come into my country to me, and I will 
sliow thee kindness. So when he came, 
ISToel-opak took him and put him in ward, 
and kept him in bonds many days ; and sent 
his own brother Phesoi to be king over JSTiaps. 

Then the ISTiapsites cried unto the king of 
ITiATiEB, and he sent an army, and fought 
against Phesoi, even until he had thrust him 
out from being king. And JSToel-opaj^ sent 
back Zednanref, and he returned and ruled 
over l^iAPS. 

^^Tow there were certain of the I^iapsites 
which had taken part with Phesoi and with 
the Ecnarfites, and had fought against Zed- 
nanref. And when Zednanref was restored 
unto his kingdom, he took these men and 
promoted them to be judges and captains and 
councillors in the kingdom of J^iaps : but the 
men that had fought for him, and brought 
him back unto his own land, these did he 
afflict very grievously, and slew divers of 



110 HISTOKIC CEKTAmXIES KESPECTING 

them, and others lie thrust into prison, and 
spoiled them of their goods, and made bonds- 
men of them. Thus did Zedna^eef unto his 
people. 

'Now the ISTiATiKBiTES were a very wealthy 
people, and had much merchandise ; for they 
were cunning workmen in wool, and in iron, 
and in brass ; and they had many ships also, 
which brought home of the good things of the 
East and of the West, even very precious 
merchandise. And the Ecnaefites and the 
rest of the servants of ]!!Toel-opan traded with 
them, because it was for their profit ; so they 
bought raiment, and works of iron and of 
brass, and spices, and goodly fruits of the 
East and of the West, of the merchants of 
E'lATiKB. Then ^^oel-opan commanded his 
officers, and they sought out all the goods 
which the servants of IToel-opan had bought, 
and burned them with fire, and destroyed 
them utterly. Thus did ]^oel-opan continu- 
ally. Moreover he sent also unto the rulers 
of Ai-NAMKEa and the other rulers of Epoeue, 
and said unto them, As ye have seen me do, 



THE EAELY HISTORY OF AMERICA. Ill 

even so do ye ; and tliey obeyed his voice, 
and sent and destroyed all the goods which 
were brought into their land, even very mnch 
merchandise. Only Hednaxela ruler of Ais- 
suR would not hearken unto ]S^oel-opak. 

Then jSToel-opaiq" ruler of Ecnarf, and 
SicNARF ruler of Saturia, and Egttl-stjmli 
ruler of Assuepi, and all the princes of Ai- 
NAMREa, gathered themselves together, they 
and all their people, and went and fought 
against Aissur. I^ow the Aissurites were 
mighty men of valour; nevertheless they 
could not stand against JSToel-opajst, because 
he had a very great host, even as the sands 
that are upon the sea-shore for multitude ; he 
had exceeding many horses also, and instru- 
ments of war ; and his captains were mighty 
men of valour. So he went forward and 
smote the western ]3arts of the land of Aissur 
with the edge of the sword, and burned their 
houses with fire, and defiled their temples ; 
and he laid waste all the country of Aissur 
until he came even unto Yocsom, which is the 
chief of all their cities. Then the Aissurites 



112 HISTOEIC CERTAINTIES RESPECTING 

set fire to Yocsom and burned it. Then 
I^OEL-OPAN sent messengers nnto Kednaxela, 
saying, Let ns now make peace together. 
Bnt all the great men of Aissiis said nnto 
Rednaxela, Hearken not nnto E"oel-opan, 
neither make thou any covenant with him, 
so long as one man of all his host remaineth 
in our land. Is he not come up to make all 
thy people servants unto the Ecnarfites? 
Else, if thou do in any wise hearken unto 
his words, we will surely slay thee, even as 
we slew the Ruler that was before thee. So 
Rednaxela answered nothing unto the mes- 
sengers, but sent forth his men of war to fight 
against ]N"oel-opan. Then ISToel-opan depart- 
ed, he and all his people ; for they said, Lest 
the host perish with the cold and with the 
famine. 

Then Rednaxela ruler of Aissijk, he and 
all his people, went and pursued the Ecnaef- 
ites, and the Saturians, and the Aissurpites, 
and the rest of the host that was with ISToel- 
OPAN", and smote them with an exceeding great 
slaughter ; and chased them out of the land. 



THE EARLY HISTORY OF AMERICA. 113 

So the host was utterly discomfited ; for they 
were more that died by the snow and by the 
famine than those which the men of Aissuk 
slew with the edge of the sword. And I^oel- 
OPAN fled for his life. Then Yotalp, who was 
one of the captains of the host of Hednaxela, 
made proclamation, saying, Whosoever shall 
slay l^OEL-oPAN, or shall take him alive, he 
shall receive an hundred thousand pieces of 
silver, and I will give him my daughter to 
wife. JSTevertheless I^oel-opan escaped, and 
returned and dwelt at Sirap. 



Chap. III. 

And it came to pass after these things that 
[N^oel-opan strengthened himself, and gathered 
together another host, instead of that which 
he had lost, and went and warred against the 
Aissurpites, and the Aissurites, and the Sa- 
TURiANS, and all the rulers of the north coun- 
try which were confederate against him. 



114: HISTOBIC CERTAINTIES KESPECTING 

And the ruler of Nedews also, wliich was au 
EcNAEFiTE, warred against JSToel-opan. So 
tliey went forth, and fought against the Ec- 
NAKFiTES in the plain of Gispiel. And the 
EcNAKFnES were discomfited before their 
enemies, and fled, and came to the rivers 
which are behind Gispiel, and essayed to pass 
over, that they might escape out of the hand 
of their enemies ; but they could not ; for 
JSToEL-oPAN had destroyed the bridges. So 
the people of the north country came upon 
them, and smote them with a very grievous 
slaughter. 

But ]-^0EL-0PAN" and those that were with 
him came unto the bridge that was left (for 
he spared one of the bridges and destroyed it 
not), and they passed over, and escaped, and 
iied towards their own land. And their 
enemies pursued after them. Then the king 
of Ai-EAVAB, whom ]S"oEL-oPA]sr had made king 
of Ai-EAVAB, came out to stop the way against 
the EcNAEFiTEs, to the intent they might not 
escape into their own land. So there w^as a 
very sore battle that day ; and much peoj)le 



THE EAELY HISTORY OF A^IEEICA. 11 5 

of the EcNAEFiTES were slain; liowbeit, J^oel- 
OPAN and thej that were with him broke 
through the host of the Ai-eavabites, and 
came nnto their own land. 

Then the ruler of Satueia and all the 
rulers of the north country sent messengers to 
I^OEL-OPAN to speak peaceably unto him, say- 
ing, Why should there be war between us 
any more ? I^ow ]^oel-opan had put away 
his wife, and taken the daughter of the ruler 
of Satueia to wife. So all the councillors of 
I^ToEL-oPAi^, even all his wise men, came and 
said unto jN^oel-opan, Behold now, these kings 
are merciful kings : do even as they say unto 
thee ; knowest thou not yet that Ecnaef is 
destroyed? But he spake roughly unto his 
councillors, and drove them out from his pre- 
sence, neither would he hearken unto their 
voice. And when all the kings saw that, 
they warred against Ecnaef, and smote it 
with the edge of the sword : as the Ecnaef- 
iTEs had done to Aissue, even so did the 
AissuEiTES to Ecnaef : only their cities did 
they not burn, neither did they defile tlicir 
temples. 



116 HISTOEIC CERTAINTIES RESPECTING 

And tliey came near unto Sirap, wliicli is 
the royal city, to take it. And they fonght 
against it, and prevailed against the men of 
wsiv which had set themselves in array before 
the city, and drove them back into the city. 
Then all the men of Sirap said one to another, 
Behold, all these nations are come against ns, 
to afflict ns, even as we have afflicted them ; 
and we have no strength to stand against 
them : let ns now go ont and make suppli- 
cation nnto them : peradventnre they will 
save our lives. So they went out and deliv- 
ered up the city unto them. Then those kings 
spake kindly unto the men of Sirap, saying, 
Be of good cheer, there shall no harm happen 
unto you. 

Then the men of Sirap were glad, and 
said. What have we to do with IToel-opan ? 
He shall not rule over us any longer. Also 
all the princes, the judges, the councillors, 
and the captains, whom ]N^0EL-0PA]sr had raised 
up, even of the lowest of the people, sent unto 
SivoL the brother of Sivol king of Ecnaef, 
whom they had slain, saying, IN^oel-opan is a 



THE EAELY HISTORY OF AMERICA. llY 

tyrant and a murderer, and we have thrust 
him out from being our ruler : only the ho- 
nours and the rewards and the offices which 
he hath given us, those will we keep ; if 
therefore thou wilt let us keep all these things, 
thou shalt be our king. And Sivol was glad, 
and he arose and went to EcifAEF to be kins: 
over them. Isow there were divers great men 
in EcNARF, men of renown, who had behaved 
themselves valiantly and fought against Sivol, 
and his house, and against the kings which 
took part with him. : all these did InToel-opait 
greatly reward, and promoted them to be 
chiefs over the people. So all these men 
took Sivol and made him king over Ecnaef ; 
and they were made princes, and councillors, 
and judges, and chief captains under him. 

And when E'oel-opan saw that the king- 
dom was departed from him, he said unto the 
ruler of Saturia, and the other rulers which 
came against him. Let me, I pray you, give 
the kingdom unto my son : but they would 
not hearken unto him. Then he spake yet 
again, saying, Let me, I pray you, go and 



118 HISTORIC CERTAINTIES RESPECTING 

live in Abel ; and ye shall give me an allow* 
ance for me and inj liouseliold, and the land 
of Abel also for a possession. So thej sent 
him to Abel, and I'Toel-opan dwelt at Abel, 
and ruled over it. To his brethren also, and 
to his mother, they gave silver and gold. 
But the wife of !Noel-opan, even the daughter 
of the ruler of Saturia, whom he had mar- 
ried, she and the son that she bore to E'oel- 
OPAN, received an inheritance of the hand of 
her father in the land of Ai-lati : So she saw 
the face of her husband no more. 



Chap. IY. 



In those days there arose a sore famine in the 
land of Yavron, which is in the IS^orth Sea, 
over against KRA3^INED. And it came to pass 
on this wise : the king of KRA^kiNED, who is 
the king of Yavron, w^as at peace with the 
other rulers of Eporue ; and JN'oel-opan, ruler 
of EcN^RF, said unto Rednaxela, ruler of 



THE EAELY HISTORY OF AMERICA. 119 

AissuR, Beliold the king of Kramned hath 
ships ; go to, let us cause his ships to fight 
for us against the king of ISTiatirb ; perad- 
venture we may jDrevail over him. And 
Rednaxela, ruler of Aissur, hearkened unto 
the words of IToel-opan ; so they conspired 
together. But when the king of ISTiatirb 
heard thereof, he sent and took away the 
ships of the king of Kraj^ined. Then was the 
king of Kramned wroth, and warred against 
the king of Kiatirb. And the ruler of Aissijr, 
even Hedkaxela, and the ruler of JS^edews 
also, which was an Ecnarfite, helped the 
J^iatirbites against the Krai^inedites and 
Ecnarfites : so the king of ^iatirb kept the 
ships which the ruler of Ecnarf and the ruler 
of Aissur had thought to bring against him. 

And the ruler of Nedews said unto the 
king of Kra:mned, Give me now Yavron, be- 
cause it is nigh unto my country ; and I will 
make a league with thee, that we may fight 
against the Ecnarfites. So when the king 
of Kramned saw that he was in evil plight, 
he said, Be content, take Yavron ; so he 



120 HISTORIC CERTAINTIES RESPECTING 

made a league with him. But the men of 
Yavron said, We will not serve the ruler of 
JSTedews. So they set a king over them, and 
strengthened themselves against the ^N^edews- 
iTES. And they said unto the ruler of J^ia- 
TiRB, Behold thy people is a free people ; and 
ye have also delivered the J^iapsites out of 
the hands of their oppressors ; let us, we pray 
thee, be free also ; and suffer thy people to 
bring us corn in ships, for money, that we 
may eat bread ; for we have not food enough. 
But the ruler of IN'iatirb said, 'Nslj, but ye 
shall serve the ruler of I^edews. So he gave 
commandment to all the captains of his ships 
that they should suffer no corn to be carried 
into the land of Yavron. Thus it came to 
pass that the famine was grievous in the land 
of Yavron. And the ruler of ISTedews pre- 
vailed against the Yavronites, and bare rule 
over them. 

And it came to pass at this time, that 
A PAP returned unto his own land. 'Now 
the EcNARFiTES, and divers other nations of 
Eporue, are servants of Apap, and hold him 



THE EAKLY HISTORY OF AMERICA. 121 

in reverence ; but lie is an abomination to 
tbe ^lATiKBiTESj and to the Aissurites, and to 
the AissuRPiTEs, and to the ]^edewsites. How- 
beit the Ecnarfites had taken away all his 
lands, and stripped him of all that he had, 
and carried him away captive into Ecnarf. 
Bnt when the ISTiatirbites, and the Aissurites, 
and the Aissurpites, and the J^edewsites, and 
the rest of the nations that were confederate 
against Ecnarf, came thither, they caused 
the Ecnarfites to set Apap at liberty, and to 
restore all his goods that they had taken : 
likewise they gave him back all his lands ; 
and he went home in peace, and ruled over 
his own city, as in times past. 



Chap. Y. 



And it came to pass after these things, when 
ISToEL-oPAN had not yet been a full year in 
Abel, that he said unto his men of war which 
clave unto him, Go to, let us go back to 

6 



122 HISTOEIC CERTAINTIES RESPECTING 

EcNARF, and fight against king SrvoL, and 
thrust liim out from being king. So lie de- 
parted, he and six hundred men with him that 
drew the sword, and warred against king Siyol. 
Then all the men of Belial gathered them- 
selves together and said, God save J^oel-opan. 
And vs^hen Sivol .heard that, he fled and gat 
him into Muigleb ; and IToel-opan ruled over 

ECNARF. 

And he sent unto the ruler of ^N'iatirb, 
and unto all the rulers of Eporue, saying. Let 
me, I pray you, rule over Ecnarf, and let 
there be peace between me and you. But 
they would not hearken unto him; but 
gathered together an exceeding great host to 
fight against him. Then JSToel-opan, he and all 
liis mighty men of valour, went out and 
fought against the E^iatirbites and the Ais- 
BtiRPiTEs and the Mijiglebites, in the plain 
country of Muigleb. And there was a very 
gore battle that day ; and the JN^iatirbites 
prevailed against the Ecnarfites, and smote 
them with a very grievous slaughter. Then 
IToel-opan fledj and returned to Sirap; but 



THE EARLY HISTORY OF AMEEICA. 123 

the people thrust him out from being ruler 
over them. So he went and gave himself up 
into the hands of the !N"iatirbites, and said, I 
pray you let me dwell in your country. But 
they sent him away to another island, in a far 
country, and set a watch over him, even 
armed men, and ships of war on every side. 
And king Sivol returned to Ecnarf and ruled 
over the Ecnaefites. as his fathers had reign- 
ed in time past. 



COMMENTAHY. 



Chap. 1. 



This curious document has lately come into 
my possession, in a way which I am not at 
present quite at liberty to explain. A small 
fragment of it has already been j)rinted by the 
ingenious author of HistoriG Doiibts resj^ecting 
Nojpoleon Buona>parte^ who, taking advantage 
of a striking parallel between this story and 
some supposed recent events, altered the an- 
cient names'^ for modern ones. The parallel 

* With respect to these names, which might at first sight 
seem a little suspicious, I must request the reader to suspend 
his judgment. A distinguished Irish antiquary, whose la- 
bours are known and valued as they deserve through all 
Eirope, has assured me that he finds traces of them in the 



126 niSTOEIC CEKTAINTIES RESPECTING 

is no doubt curious ; but, perhaps, more curi- 
ous than just. But if the hypothesis of that 
critic be correct, it may serve to show that 

Eugubian tables, and cognate inscriptions in the Ogham 
character. The name of Xiatirb is probably comjDounded 
of j^;, or, in the plenior scriptio, ^^'2 or j^*]; (n and "] being 
originally the same letter), which occurs in such names of 
places as No-ammon (Nahum iii. 8), &c. &g., which probably 
denotes dwelling, abode (compare j/atetj/, vahs), and h^'tj, the 
name of the god of spoil (cf. Ps. Ixxvi. 5), or ^"^fn (cf. Heb. 
ri'^i^ln)* the god of usury — i. e. Plutus. Many things, in- 
deed, make it probable tliat Gain was the deity chiefly wor- 
shipped in ]S"iATiRB. Similar traces of Hebrew radicals occur 
in the Book of Mormon, which has quite as large a substra- 
tum of fact as the Jewish histories. See in the Stiidien und 
Kritikeit for 1843 {Viertes Heft, Hamburg, 1843), some curi- 
ous evidence produced from Daumer (on the Moloch-worship 
of the ancient Hebrews) of an early connexion (through 
Abraham) between Palestine and America. He has tried to 
show (p. 260 — in the Review, p. 103*7), that the original name 
of that continent was Noah. But it may be questioned 
whether he has not mistaken the important isle 'Nix or Xoa- 
TiRB for the continent itself. The ludicrous attempt to 
identify the name with Britain (by reading it backward !) 
can hardly be seriously meant, and is worthy only of Dean 
Swift. 'Nor can that wild attempt be CA^en coyisistently cai*- 
ried out. What^ e. g. can be made of SArruRiA, and Egul* 



THE EARLY HISTOEY OF xiMEEICA. 127 

the framers of the legend of Buonaparte 
worked npon a model already in existence, a 
phenomenon not imfreqnent in myths. With 
this, however, I have no direct concern. The 
critic of whom I speak, applying the philo- 
sophical principles of evidence, as a test, just- 
ly pronounced the story here given as a whole 
incredible. It did not suit his purpose to go 
farther into details, nor, indeed, would the 
coarse way of dealing with ancient narratives 

suMLi? Yet these names may be readily illustrated by the 
lights of the Indo-Semitic diakcts. Delitzsch (Jesurun, p. 
220) has shown that ur, in Sanskrit, ura, is a propei* Semitic 
termination, as in '-I'lnSS from rCSi ^"^^ lltlS fi'om h^. 
This gives 'il^^t) or, in the Sanskrit form, Zaimra = Saitu- 
ria, as the " olive-land :" and this shows ns why the ^drvpoi 
were, in the Greek mythology, represented as the companiona 
of Bacchus ; "wine and oil" being associated in the ideas of 
the ancients. 

Egul-Sumli is equivalent to the Latin name RorariuSy 
being obviously derived from ^^j^, dew (Job xxxviii. 28), 
and ^>30, to resemble. Compare the Hebrew description of 
a good prince, — 

Like rain shall he fall upon the mown grass : 
Like the drops that bedew the soil. — Psalm Ixxii. 4. 



128 HISTOKIC CERTAINTIES RESPECTING 

then in fashion have favoured his doing so. 
But a more delicate method of investigation 
has of late years been introduced in Ger- 
many, which has enabled us to precipitate, as 
it were, a certain portion of truth from the 
most romantic narratives, and make even 
mythic legends supply solid contributions to 
legitimate history. Such a method it is my 
wish to apply in the present instance, refer- 
ring the reader for a minute delineation of it 
to Strauss's admirable preface to the Leben 
Jesii, and Mr. ^N^ewman's History of the He- 
hrew ComTnonwealth. 

This document (though professing to be 
the chronicles of Ecnarf) is plainly the work 
of a IN^iATiRBiTE. It dates from the days of 
Egroeg, king of ISTiatirb ; and the design of 
exalting that island (whether justly or not) is 
so manifest all through the narrative, that it 
must strike the reader even at first glance. 

Taking, then, this clue with us, and re- 
viewing the whole document in the light of 
"the higher criticism," we shall find little 
difficulty in arriving at the substantial truth. 



THE EAKLY HISTORT OF AMERICA. 120 

Guided b}" a fixed ruling princij)le, we shall 
discover that a consistent thread of fact lies 
at the bottom of this tano:led tissue, whicli 
may, in most instances, be brought out en- 
tire, when sought for with a keen eye and a 
steady hand. 

The very opening of the narrative is full 
of contradictions, which at once betray their 
origin. 

"SrvoL," it is said, "was a just man and 
merciful." We are told this in immediate 
connexion with the statement that he ruled 
over EcNARF. " even as Ms fathers had reigned 
before him." Yet, in the very next sentence 
we find the people complaining that his 
fathers (these princes who had reigned like 
the just and merciful Sivol) made their yoke 
very grievous ; and not only so, but plainly 
intimating that the yoke upon them still con- 
tinued grievous under this just and merciful 
sovereign ! But the purpose which was 
meant to be served by these flagrant contra- 
dictions soon reveals itself. The constitution 
of ^lATiEB is to be represented, at all hazards, 



130 HISTOKIC CERTAINTIES EESPECTLNG 

as the envy and admiration of other people ; 
and with that aim, the subjects are to be re- 
presented as importunatelj demanding its in- 
troduction. The issue however of king Sivol's 
supposed compliance with their demand suf- 
ficiently refutes both these absurd encomiums 
upon that constitution itself, and the account 
here given of its attempted introduction into 
Ecii^AEF. The people, we are informed, im- 
mediately upon receiving the boon they sought, 
" laid hands on king Sivol, and slew him, and 
all his house, and all his great men, and as 
many as they could find." Here we are 
called upon to believe thsit jprecisely the same 
consequ'ences as ive might escpect to attend the 
forcing of disagreeable laws on a/n unwilling 
jpeoj^le, attended the frank concession of a gift 
which that peoj)le earnestly desired. This is 
surely too large a demand upon our credulity ; 
and if, rejecting such a story as a palpable 
misrepresentation, we turn to consider what 
is likely to have been the real state of facts 
thus coloured by an interested narrator, the 
next clause will afibrd us material assistance. 



THE EARLY HISTORY OF AMERICA. 131 

" But some fled in ships, and got thein away 
to I^iATiRB, and dwelt in I^iatirb." "\Ye see 
here it was the Mng^ s friends who found their 
natural asylum in that island, w^hose laws, 
Avhen introduced into Ecnarf, produced a 
revolution that overturned a very ancient dy- 
nasty, and occasioned the execution of the 
prince and his chief adherents. It needs no 
peculiar sagacity to discern the truth through 
this almost transparent veil of fiction. Sr^ol 
was just and merciful, because he was the 
friend of Is^iatirb. All^ we must observe, 
who adhere to that island are just"^ in the 
language of this document; wliile all who 
oppose its interests are, as a matter of course, 
depicted as monsters of cruelty and per- 
fidiousness. He attempted (perhaps he may 
have coloured the attempt by bribing some 
of the populace to demand it) — He attempted 
to force the odious " laws and ordinances" of 

* So afterwards, " Behold these kings are merciful kings." 
Michaelis (ad Lowth, Pntlect. p. 534) has remarked a simi- 
lar usage of the words "wicked" and "righteous" in the 
Hebrew Scriptures, 



132 HISTORIC CERTAINTIES RESPECTING 

KiATiRB upon a reluctant nation. His out- 
raged subjects rose in defence of tlieir rights 
Possibly lie and his chief adherents may 
have perished in the conflict. But that there 
was no such wholesale massacre as the words 
at first might seem to imply, the document 
itself makes evident, by confessing that ''^ some 
fled in sJiips^'' [observe the plural number], 
" and got them away to I^iatirb," where they 
naturally looked for, and naturally found, -pro- 
tection. 

To any one who is thoroughly aware of 
the prejudiced tone of the narrative, the next 
paragaph will sound as little more than the 
writer's peculiar way of saying, that the 
EcNAUFiTES established a constitution which, 
in its liberality, contrasted strongly with the 
tyrannous government of the king of J^iatirb 
and his brother despots. The document itself 
makes it sufiiciently plain that its statements 
cannot be taken as literally true. For after 
telling us that the Ecnarfites had resolved to 
" do every one as seemed right in his own 
eyes," it incidentally admits that " they had 



THE EAKLY HISTORY OF AMEEICA. 133 

cliosen councils of elders and set judges over 
them," These are not the proceedings of a 
lawless mob ; but it is no new thing for the 
bigoted admirers of monarchy to traduce all 
repubhcan institutions as mere anarchy and 
confusion. And that this really lies at the 
bottom of the gross exaggeration before us, 
becomes more and more manifest as we pro- 
ceed. The EcNAKFiTEs, it is said, proposed 
not only to be free themselves, but to "set 
free other nations." Xow, this supposes that, 
in their opinion, other nations were not free. 
And, throughout the wliole of the document, 
it is not so much as once pretended that the 
nations on the continent of Epokue were free. 
On the contrary, it seems everywhere implied 
that the princes of the various people there 
enumerated were despots in the most odious 
sense of the term, and their subjects really 
slaves. The happy isle of JSTiatieb is the one 
exception ; the laws of which are earnestly 
desired by suffering subjects as a light and 
easy yoke. Yet, no sooner do the Ecnarfites 
assert their freedom, than the king of Niattrb 



134: HISTOEiC CEETAESTTIES RESPECTING 

is seized with the same panic as the other 
princes. He makes common cause with 
them, and for tlie same reason. An intention 
of the enfranchised Ecnaefites to set other 
people free is, indeed, alleged ; but no overt 
act of hostility on their part is specified. 
The contagious influence of their example, 
not the aggressive power of their armies, is 
manifestly the thing dreaded; "For they 
said, lest ou/r ^eoj)le slay us." Truly, " it is 
conscience that makes cowards of us ?il." If 
the king of JSTiatieb had felt that his case was 
an excepted one, and that his j)eople felt 
themselves under the administration of equal 
laws and in the enjoyment of political rights 
— that they were already what could with 
any propriety of speech be called a free 
people — he would never have given way to 
such unreasonable apprehensions ; still less, 
if the visible effects of the revolution in 
EcNAEF were such as are here described : — 
"The EcNAEFiTES slcw oue another with a 
great slaughter. Moreover, there was a 
8ore dearth in the land, and the people were 



THE EAULY HISTORY OF AMERICA. 135 

greatly impoverished." What was there, let 
me ask, in the spectacle of snch a state to se- 
duce ^free peeple, possessing already a libe- 
ral and just constitution — a people affluent, 
as we are told, chap, ii., in all the luxuries of 
life — to follow an example so disastrous in its 
consequences, and to follow which they had 
so few temptations ? 

Honesty, however, compels me to confess 
that I do not lay much stress upon the repre- 
sentation here given of the state of Ecnaef, 
as furnishing a ground for this argument, 
which is quite strong enough without it. 
That representation is chiefly worth attending 
to, as manifesting the animus of the narrator 
liimself, who seems (under the usual prejudi- 
ces of persons reared under despotism) to 
confound, or wish his readers to confound, 
the ideas of freedom and anarchy, and to re- 
cognise no distinction between oppression 
and licentiousness. ]^o rational person, in- 
deed, who ventures to examine for himself, 
can fail to perceive that the picture here 
drawn of the disturbances which may possi- 



136 niSTOEIC CERTAINTIES EESPECTING 

bly have attended the sudden attainment of 
liberty in Ecnakf is, to say tlie least of it, 
grossly overcharged in the colouring. If that 
nation were indeed reduced by civil dissen- 
sion and famine to the condition here describ- 
ed, they could not he such an object of terror 
to the surrounding peoj)le; nor would their 
subjugation require the combined forces of 
so many princes conspiring in a league 
against them. But when it is added that a 
people thus weakened by mutual slaughter 
and famine not only resist such potent assail- 
ants, but subdue them ; — not only protect 
their own soil, but carry their conquests far 
and wdde over the land of their enemies ; — 
the story sinks under its own inconsistencies. 
Still this does not im23ly that we are to reject 
the whole as a pure fiction. Let us cast 
away that which the writer had a manifest 
object in mis-stating. His enmity to Ecnakf 
would not lead him to magnify its successes, 
but it might well lead him to falsify the his- 
tory of its state under the new anti-Wiatirbite 
constitution. Discounting then, as it were, 



THE EAKLY HISTORY CF AMERICA. 137 

this envious fiction, we shall find that the 
facts elicited from his whole statement are as 
follows : — An endeavour to introduce the 
I.aws of ^lATiiiB into Ecnakf was made in 
tlie reign of Sivol ; the consequence of that 
attempt was a general rising of the people, in 
which Sivol and his principal adherents lost 
their lives, the remainder flying into J^iatieb, 
where they were received as friends. There- 
upon the Ecnarfites resolved to he free, and 
established a government by Councils of 
Elders and Judges. In consequence of these 
proceedings the king of I^^l'vTIRb, and other 
princes of Epoeue, became alarmed lest their 
subjects should follow the example of the 
Ecnakfites, and formed a league for the pur- 
pose of crushing them. ]!^evertheless, the 
state of EcNAiiF became so strong, under its 
new institutions, that it not only resisted their 
assault, but extended its dominion over a 
large portion of the continent of Eportje. 

These, I say, are the simple facts presented 
by the document itself. I have not added a 
single tittle to the statements made by the 



138 HISTORIC CEKTAINTIES KESPECTING 

chronicler. I have only removed some mani- 
festly inconsistent and exaggerated represen- 
tations introduced for an obvious purpose, by 
which they were overlaid. And I think I 
may safely leave it to the intelligent reader 
himself to draw the proper inference from 
these facts. We have now then gained at 
last firm footing, and may proceed, with less 
hesitating steps, to make our way through 
the quaking mire of falsehood and misrepre- 
sentation which surrounds us. 

The next paragraph — making allowance 
as before for hostile colouring — may be allow- 
ed to have a basis of fact. Tlie Ecnaefites 
probably found it necessary to levy such con- 
tributions as are usually levied by conquerors 
in the countries occupied by their troops ; 
which may also have been greatly inconve- 
nient to a people already impoverished by 
the oppressive exactions of their native 
princes. 

There is much internal probability also in 
the next statement. Islands have ever been 
famous (since the days of Minos) for their 



THE EARLY HISTOEY OF AMERICA. 139 

naval po^v^er ; and the ITiatiebites may, very 
likelv, have had such an advantage by sea 
over their continental neighbours as is here 
described. The frank admission that their 
forces were inferior by land, adds to the veri- 
similitude of the narrative. But I shall show 
presently that, as we might expect, their suc- 
cess in naval w^arfare was not so absolutely 
uniform as this w^riter would have us to be- 
lieve. Taken, however, with the requisite 
abatements, this paragraph also may be ad- 
mitted as a statement of facts. 

But the complexion of the next statement 
will justify greater hesitation. 

A ]Dei'son (Noel-opan)"^ now enters upon 

* This, I have no doubt, was not his real name, but the 
nickname under which he was known in Niatirb. Noel- 
OPAN is neither more nor less than the " Godless Revolution." 
5^12, as Gesenius justly observes, is radically equivalent to 
verneinen, vernichten, to deny or annihilate. As a particle, 
it answers to the Greek negative, vr] (in v^ttios, vTjficpT-fis, &c.) 
—the Latin ne or non — tlie English no — the German ncin—' 
the Arabic \\. El (j{^,) as every one knows, ig the name 
of God : Noel therefore is the same as oL^eos, godless. IBIJ^ 
Opan, actually occurs as the name of a wheel in Ezekiel, in 



14:0 HISTOEIC CEKTAINTIES KESPECTINa 

tlie scene, whom it is tlie manifest Vsdsli of 
this writer to hold up as an object of dread 
and aversion to the people of J^iatirb. 

The rules of evidence, therefore, demand 
that we should watch his proceedings jealous- 
ly when dealing Avith such a character ; and 
remembering that v>^e have no contemporary 
EcNAEFiTE counter-statement to set against 
his prejudiced testimony, give that nation the 
benefit of any doubt which may be raised by 
the tenour of the narrative. We should deal, 
in short, as if w^e were handling a Hebrew 
j)riest's uncorroborated account of the Baal- 
worshippers, or a Davidite's description of 
the kingdom of Israel. Bearing, then, all 

Exod. xiv. 25, and many other, places. In its contracted 
form, n^^, it denotes a period or revolution of time. It is 
impossible to resist these little obvious, but on that ac- 
count more striking, evidences of the antiquity of the 
document. Tlie framers of the story of Napoleon Avere, I 
fancy, aware of the true etymology of Noel-opan. Hence 
they represent a great literary bugbear (Lord Byron) as 
signing his name, " Koel-Byron," — just as Shelley is said to 
have written videos after his name in the album at Cha- 
mounl 



THE EARLY HISTORY OF AMERICA. 141 

this in mind, let us examine the statement 
before iis. 

"There was a certain man of Akisroo, 
whose name was Koel-opais"." In another 
MS. I find the remarkable addition, " a man 
of the island of Akisroc." This great man, 
then, was an islander^ and therefore, as we 
have seen, not milikelj to supj^ly the EcisrAR- 
fites with what they most needed, — an officer 
well skilled in the management of fleets. If 
we admit this easy hypothesis, it will account 
for much that might otherwise seem startling 
in the narrative. It will show us how one, 
not a native Ecnarfite, should attain such 
eminence as is here attributed to the Akis- 
EOCAN IS'oEL-oPAis^, or personificatiou of the 
Godless Revolution. He and his islanders 
now take the lead, because the State is engag- 
ed in naval affairs, in which the Ecnarfites 
vfere notoriously deficient ; for that the war 
in SuTPYGE involved^ at least, large marine 
operations, is evident (though that fact is in- 
dustriously obscured) from the language of 
the narrative, where it tells us, that the king 



142 HISTOEIO CEETAINTIES RESPECTING 

of J^iATiEB " sent shvps of war and valiant 
men to fight against the Ecnarfites." Again : 
this liypothesis will account for the Ecnakf- 
iTEs now venturing on a distant naval expe- 
dition, a step which would be otherwise 
highly improbable, considering their previous 
frequent reverses at sea. 

I think we may fairly assume, then, that 
this expedition to Sutptge was principally a 
naval expedition, if not wholly such. Cer- 
tainly, whatever is here told us of land Gene- 
rations is little more than pure fable. It is 
quite impossible to believe that the presence 
of " certain of the JSTiatiebites" in Ekca, 
should have been sufficient to defeat such a 
chieftain as E'oel-opan, when we know, from 
this writer's own admission, that the jN^iatir- 
BiTES were, even in large armies, quite infe- 
rior by land to Ecnakfite soldiers. But if 
there were really no considerable land-opera* 
tions in this war, of which any true records 
remained, here was precisely just one of those 
blank spaces which the mythic fancy loves to 
fill with imaginary incidents^ Where there 



THE EAKLY HISTORY OF AlklEKICA. 143 

were real battles by land, even this liistorian 
cannot pretend that the IS'.tatikbites reaped 
many laurels ; but, to save their credit, he 
conjures up in a distant region a fantastic 
campaign of his own, where they may safely 
enjoy— 

Occulta spolia et pliires de pace triumphos. 

ITor does it militate against this yiew, that 
we find that IToEL-opAiq- overcame the Princes 
of the land of Sutpyge. Those princes (if 
there were any such) w^ere the deputies of a 
foreign Sovereign, the ruler of Yekrut. It is 
natural to suppose that the native population 
were ready enough to rise against them ; so 
that nothing more was necessary than the re- 
duction of their fortresses, (situated most like- 
ly on the sea-coast,) and the supply of arms 
to the natives of the country. All this might 
be efiected by a naval expedition. 

The expedition then, I repeat, was almost 
entirely a naval one; and it seems equally 
certain that it was successful. The historian, 
indeed, assures us, that '' ]N^oel-opan left the 



144 HISTOSIO CERTAINTIES EESPECTING 

captains and tlie armj, and fled." But wliat 
I have before said will readily account for 
tlio former statement, and what he himself 
adds sufficiently refutes the latter. 

That l^oEL-oPAin' returned without an army 
is, I think, a fact. The prejudiced chronicler 
accounts for this fact in his own peculiar way, 
by saying that he left the army hehind. But 
if I am right, the reader sees that we do not 
need any forced o.ccoiint of the matter at all. 
He returned without an army, because he had 
gone without an army. 

N'ow, secondly, as to his flight. He must 
have fled, if he fled at all, hy sea. Indeed, 
my MS. says expressly — " and fled away in 
shijpsP But we do not need that help. This 
point has been proved already. Now, we 
may ask, how could he possibly have escaped 
in this way % The King of N'iatirb, we are 
told, was undisputed master of the sea. He 
had " exceeding many ships of war," nay, his 
fleet is described in Chap. H., as watching 
" round all the coasts . of Ecnaef, that none 
might come in or go out." Plainly I^oel- 



THE EAULY IHSTOKY OF AMERICA. 145 

OPAN could only have escwped such, a guard 
as this by conquering it.* 

And that conquer it he did, is still more 
demonstratively evident from the result. 
"Then the Ecnarfites took I^oel-opak-, and 
made him ruler over them." This is not the 

* To these arguments we may add another philological 
one, which (as less certain in itself) I reserve for a note. In 
the name Sutpyge, the first syllable is evidently equivalent 
to our South, Germ. Sud — , which appears transposed in the 
Latin Aust-er — Saut-er : while the other syllable is as plainly 
connected with the Semitic 5-] 5, /revere. The name, then, 
indicates some region near or within the Antarctic Circle ; 
which could hardly be valuable but as a naval or fishing 
station. Yekrut connects itself with JpT^, (in the form tllp^'^ 
e£ ClI^S^ fi'oui iTii,) "to be gi'een." I understand by it, 
some of the verdant Australian regions : but the great anti- 
quary before referred to thinks that it plainly indicates " the 
HJmerald Me'' — "the green Isle of the West" It must be 
allowed that the story of St. Brandan's voyages, and the 
legend of O'Brazil, seem to show a very early connection 
between Ireland and the New "World. But penes lectorem 
esto judicium. The great distance of Yekkut, on this hypo- 
thesis, would sufficiently account for our hearing no ra-M-e 
of its monarch in the rest of the history, and for his lea vmg 
the defence of Sutpyge wholly to his ally, the king of 

NiATIRB. 

7 



146 HISTORIC CEETAINTIES RESPECTING 

return whicli people make to a bafSed chief- 
tain, and that chieftain a stranger, who has 
basely abandoned his captains and his army, 
and brings back nothing but the fatal con- 
sequences of disaster, and the indelible shame 
of defeat ; but it is the recompence which a 
grateful people might well bestow upon a 
victorious warrior, who has restored power 
where there had been weakness — who has 
humbled the boasting enemy in his own ele- 
ment, and by some hardly-hoped-for success, 
achieved imperishable renown for himself and 
for his adopted country. 



Chap. II. 



With what precise powers Koel-opan was 
invested, on becoming " Ruler of Ecnaef," 
it would be difficult, perhaps impossible, to 
discover. We shall find, however, substan- 
tial proofs hereafter, that his authority was 
not des^otioal^ but limited by a constitution 



THE EAKLT HISIORY OF AMEEICA. 147 

acceptable to the country. His office was 
very probably somewhat similar to that of a 
modern " President," or " Doge," and an an- 
cient " Archon," or *' Consul." Immediately 
upon his elevation, we find him (in a manner 
wholly inconsistent with the ambitious and 
overbearing character here attributed to him) 
making voluntary overtures of peace to the 
king of NiATiEB, and persisting in them too, 
in spite of the contemptuous manner in which 
they were at first received. He felt, no 
doubt, the strength and lustre of his own po- 
sition ; and in the glory of his late victories, 
and with the united support of a grateful na- 
tion, he could afiord to despise the petty in- 
solence of an irritated, because humbled, an- 
tagonist. He was resolved to restore tran- 
quillity to the Continent ; and he was con- 
scious of having the power to coerce the ISTiA- 
TiKBiTEs, if necessary, to come to reasonable 
terms. The king of E'iatieb, after some blus- 
tering, soon showed that he also understood 
the nature of the crisis ; and, after a period 
of negotiation, peace at last was made. 



14:8 HISTORIC CEKTAINTIES RESPECTING 

Peace, however, wliich was sincerely de- 
sired by J^OEL-OPAN for liis own sake, was re- 
garded by the king of JSTiatirb merely as a 
breathing-space to prepare for a fresh and 
more desperate struggle ; 

" Mox reficit rates 
Quassas." 

\ 

We find him soon once more in the possession 
of a numerous and powerful navy. But (in a 
manner quite at variance with the story of 
his recent wonderful victories over the Ec- 
NAKFiTE army in Sutpyge) he trusts wholly 
for land-forces to the assistance of his conti- 
nental allies, whom he perfidiously " stirs up" 
against jN^oel-opan, during the very peace 
which that ruler's clemency had granted. 
"No wonder that, under such circumstances, 
1N"0EL-0PAK should be " wroth," and resolve to 
crush for ever so troublesome and faithless 
an enemy. That the delay of his expedition 
into JSTiATiEB was wholly owing (as this chron- 
icler would fain persuade us) to the watch- 
fulness of its fleets, is hardly credible. It 



TlIE EAKLY HlS'fvitr OF AMERICA. 14^ 

Beems inncli more probable that tlie great 
EoxAEFiTE commander was diverted from that 
object by the more pressing assaults of his 
immediate assailants on shore. I need not 
warn the reader to set down as exaggerations 
the account given of Koel-opan's hard treat- 
ment of his enemies. We are by this time 
prepared for such statements, and refer them, 
as a matter of course, to their real origin. 

How far the chronicler was prepared to 
go in the way of misrepresentation, we have 
a striking instance, in the story of Zednanref. 
At first sight, it appears one monstrous mass 
of glaring falsehoods and contradictions ; but, 
on a nearer view, the way clears, and a re- 
markable paragraph at the end puts the clue 
into our hand, which we may safely follow. 

Zednanref, we are there told, upon his 
return to Niaps* rewarded the adherents of 

* NiAPa i3 clearly a Hebrew or Phoenician formative* 
5%i;, as we have already seen, is a local prefix, o^jii denotes 
an extremity ; and it occurs as part of the name of a place 
in the tribe of Judah, 1 Sam. xvii. 1. Niaps was probably 
an extreme peninsula of Eporue. If we tate '^^s^ !rH "- ^» 



150 HISTORIC CERTAINTIES EESPECTENG 

Phesoi, and punislied those persons who, du- 
ring his absence, had taken np arms in his 
name. As it is confessed that he was, at 
this time at least, perfectly a free agent, we 
cannot construe such a proceeding otherwise 
than as a deliberate declaration on his part, 
that he regarded Phesoi's friends as his 
friends, and Phesoi's enemies as his enemies. 
The story, then, of his having been entrapped 
by JToEL-oPAjs", and kept a prisoner in Ecnaef, 
vanishes of itself. But we may go farther.. 
The crafty king of I^iatieb would never have 
sent out a large army into ISTiaps for the mere 
unselfish purpose of restoring the legitimate 
monarch to his rights. He must have de- 

the true expression, and suppose ^j^ hj^ (lit. the nose of fire) 
to denote a volcano, we may identify !N"iaps with the Terra 
del Fuego of modern geographers. To this latter hypothesis 
I rather incline. Eporue (compare the modern Peru and 
ancient Ophir, and the dual form, QIT^E;, Parvayim — ^i. e. 
the two Penes, or North and South America, 2 Chron. iii. 6) 
will then be fixed as South America. The Ynoas or Ycxas 
were possibly an Ecnarfite dynasty, the heavy final syllable 
of EcNARF dropping its consonants, to lighten the pronim- 
eialion. 



THE EAKLY HISTORY OF AMERICA. 151 

signed (if any such expedition were made at 
all) to establish his own, and destroy the in- 
fluence of IToEL-oPAiNr in that quarter. Is it 
credible, then*, that he should have permitted 
this mere puppet-prince, restored by the force 
of the JSTiATiRBiTE arms, to follow (even if he 
were absurdly so inclined) a policy fatal to 
the very objects for which he had expended 
so much blood and treasure ? 

*' Credat Jud^us apella ! 
"Non ego." 

,This, I think, must be left to the maintainers 
(if there be still any such) of the literal accu- 
racy of the Jewish histories. The story, then, 
of the forcible restoration of Zednanref by 
the triumphant I^iatirbites vanishes, like that 
of his forcible detention. 

What the real facts of the case were, it 
may not be quite easy to determine : but the 
following appears at least 2i probable account 
of them. 

We have heard already of the fears enter- 
tained by the princes of Eporue lest their 



152 HISTORIC CERTAINTIES RESPECTING 

subjects should follow the example of the 
EcNARFiTEs. Thosc fears were not ground- 
less ; and we may well suppose that the peo- 
ple of many states were struck by the vast 
advantages which the Ecnarfites had reaped 
from their revolution. Amongst these we 
should reckon the people of I^iaps, though 
there was doubtless a strong party in that 
country who adhered, with bigoted tenacity, 
to the old regime. Tumults and confusion 
were the consequence. Zednanref, ignorant 
(as his education had left him) of the mode 
of managing liberal institutions, found him- 
self incapable of dealing witli this trying 
crisis : he retired into Ecnarf, and placed 
himself under the direction of his best friend, 
IToEL-opAN, where he might have a safe op- 
portunity of watcldng the operation of the 
new machinery, as guided by such a master- 
workman. Meanwhile (unquestionably at 
Zednanref's own request) PnEaoi, the brother 
of JsToEL-oPAN, was sent to undertake the ad- 
ministration of affairs in ]!!Tiaps. Hereupon 
the disaffected champions of tyranny spread 



' THE EAULY HISTORY OF AMERICA. 153 

a report tliat tlieir lawful king was kept a 
prisoner by the perfidious ruler of Ecnaef, 
and took arms, in pretended assertion of his 
claims. The efforts of Phesoi were neverthe- 
less crowned with a fortunate issue ; and the 
slanderous story was in due time refuted by 
the re-appearance of Zednai^eef, who came 
back unshackled by any conditions, and witli 
full liberty to act as he pleased. The first 
act of the grateful monarch was to disavow 
all participation in the base calumnies which 
had been circulated to blacken his magnani- 
mous benefactor. He confirmed Phesoi 's offi- 
cers in their places, and imprisoned or ban- 
ished those who had traitorously abused his 
name, and whom Phesoi had nobly declined 
to punish by his own authority. Zednaneef's 
conduct, then, appears (when the truth is 
seen) to have been as wise and honourable, 
as it seems base and infatuated in the narra- 
tive of this blind partisan. But the chroni- 
cler calculated his story for the meridian of 
KiATiEB ; or perhaps only gave currency to 



154: HISTGEIC CEETAmTIES RESPECTING 

the traditional legend wliicli lie found there 
received. 

The story which comes next, about the 
burning of the I^iatiebite merchandise, I was 
at first inclined to reject as a mere fiction — 
" a weak invention of the enemy." But a 
curious fragment of what seems (from its 
feebler and more prolix style) a later contin- 
uation of these chronicles, has since come 
into my hands, which shows, I think, that it^ 
too, may have some historical foundation. 
The fragment is this : " There were merchant- 
men in ISTiATiEB who traded to the land of 
Anich, and had large traffic with it. They 
went thither in ships, and brought thence 
very costly merchandise — even bitter herbs. 
For the ANicnms love the bitterness of those 
herbs, and steep them in water, and drink 
thereof. But the I^iatiebites love it not ; but 
they put sugar therewith to sweeten it. So 
the merchant-men Avent, year by year con- 
tinually, to the land of Anich for the bitter 
herbs; and gave in exchange money, even 
gold and silver, in great abundance. And 



THE EARLY HISTORY OF AMERICA. 155 

the profit of their traffic was great ; and the 
merchant-men grew rich exceedingly. 

"Then those merchant-men said among 
themselves : Behold onr silver and onr gold 
goeth out unto Anich, and retnrneth not 
again, and we bring nothing thence bnt only 
these bitter herbs. Moreover the Anichtms 
enhance the price on ns, so that we shall be 
impoverished. Go to : let us bring them 
hardware, and articles of curious workman- 
ship. Peradventure they will take them in 
exchange. 

" Then those merchant-men took hard- 
ware and articles of curious workmanship, 
and brought them to the land of Anich, and 
set them before the ANicHiiis. But the 
Anichims answered them, and said, ISTay, but 
we will have gold and silver. 

" Then the merchant-men said among 
themselves the second time, Go to, let us try 
them with broad cloth and with fustian, and 
with divers kinds of cotton goods, and of 
woollen. But the Anichims answered them 
the second time, Are not the silks and mus- 



156 HISTOEIC CERTAINTIES KESPEGTING 

lins of Anich better than all tiie broad cloth 
and the fustian of I^iatieb ? And they 
laughed them to scorn. 

" Then the merchant-men were sore griev- 
ed ; and they said one to another, Behold, 
these two times they have refused onr goods : 
What shall we do therefore ? 

" Then rose up a certain wise man and 
said unto them. Try them yet a third time 
also, and take nnto them opium, peradven- 
ture they will choose that, ]^ow opinm is a 
drug, which, when a man tasteth, he be- 
cometh mad or foolish, and pineth away, and 
dieth miserably. 

" As soon, then, as they had set the opium 
before the ANicmMs, the men of Anich an- 
swered and said. Behold, now this is good : 
We will give nnto yon our bitter herbs for 
opium ; and, if that be not enough, take ye 
of us also gold and silver, as the price thereof 
shall be. 

" So the merchants were glad when they 
heard that ; and they brought out opium in 
their ships year by year, and sold it to the 



THE EAELY HISTORY OF AMERICA. 157 

Anichims ; and the Anichims took it, and tliey 
became mad or foolish, and pined away, and 
died miserably. 

" Then the king of Anich was exceeding 
wroth, because his people died miserably, and 
he sent letters unto his rulers and officers say- 
ing, As soon as these letters be come unto 
you, go presently and burn up all the opium 
that is in the land, and destroy it utterly. So 
the rulers and officers made diligent search, 
and burned up all the opium that was in the 
land. Howbeit, there was some left, which 
the rulers and officers had hidden for them- 
selves in secret places. 

"Now the queen of I^iatieb was a just 
queen, fearing God and doing uprightly. 
"When, therefore, she had heard of all that 
the king of Anich had done, she sent fortli 
ships of war and valiant men, and very much 
artillery, to waste the land of Anich, and to 
take the cities thereof, because of the opium 
which the king of Anich had burned. 

" Also the priests of the land of Niatieb, 
which did eat at the queen's table — (she is 



158 HISTOEIO CERTAINTIES EESPECTING 

lady over them, and they have a tenth of all 
the increase of the land. Howbeit, they re- 
ceive not the full tenth) — arose and said, Be- 
hold, the Anichims shall be snbdued before 
our lady the queen, and the trade of the 
merchantmen shall be restored, which the 
king of Anich hath cut off: let us, therefore, 
now send men nnto the land of Anich, to 
teach the Anichims that they be not drunkep 
with opium as heretofore, neither give it nnto 
others that they may be drunken. For it is 
a law of the I^iatiebites, held in reverence by 
all the people, that whatsoever thing they 
would that men should do unto them, they 
should do unto others likewise. Then the 
queen said, Send, and I will also take cities 
from the king of Anich, that the men whom 
ye send may dwell there safely, and teach the 
men of Anich tlie way of uprightness." 

This story is, no doubt, monstrously ab- 
surd. The costly merchandise of hitter herbs, 
fetched in ships from a great distance, for the 
purpose of being sweetened at home ; the 
pious zeal of the good queen and her priests 



THE EAULY HISTORY OF AMERICA. 159 

(who have a right to the tenth, and yet, with 
the characteristic modesty of the holy tribe, 
do not take a full tenth)* to teach the Anich- 
iMS not to use the poison they were forced to 
huy — are sufficiently ludicrons. But, if I am 
not wholly mistaken, this substratum of fact 
remains — that the IsTiatirbites poisoned the 
goods which they irrvported into Anich. I am 
willing to allow some weight to the character 
here given of the queen. She was probably 
no worse than her predecessors. At any rate, 
she was a woman, and, therefore, naturally 
merciful. She would not, therefore, have 
supported this nefarious scheme, if it were 
not a part of the established policy of her 
country. As to the excellent law of practice 
which is said to have been held in reverence 
by the ITiATiRBrrES, it is plain that the priests 
must have expounded it as referring to pri- 
vate individuals exclusively, not to the public 

* On the antiquity of titties, see Selden and Spelman, 
The first notice we have of tithes occurs in the case of Abra- 
ham, who, as Daumer has proved, certainly came from 
America, 



ICO HISTOKIC CERTAINTIES RESPECTmG 

policy of states and princes.* In all ages, 
indeed, casnists have held a distinction be- 
tween these two cases ; and not only Hobbes 
and Machiavelli, bnt Christian divines, have 
stretched the license of sovereigns very 
far. 

If then, as we may now assume, the poi- 
soning OF isiERCHANDisE was ail established 
part of the state craft of I:s"iatirb, we have a 
very reasonable account of Noel-opan's con- 
duct in burning their wares, and exhorting 
his allies to follow his example. If we reject 
this account, we must suppose that this man, 
who had risen by his own talents to the chief 

* At any rate, the Niatirbites no doubt reverenced it as 
an excellent ride for the Anichims. So many consider univer- 
sal toleration the plain duty of all — except the true believers. 
And the republicans of Kentucky confine their constitutional 
dogmas, "all men are born free and equal," to the whites. 
Indeed, the great difference between the Northern and South- 
ern portions of the United States leads me to suspect that the 
population of the latter is not so much of British as of Niatirb- 
iTisH origin. My friend Professor Sillyman of Massachusetts 
has accumulated a great mass of evidence on this subject, which, 
it is to be h.»ped, he will soon publish. 



THE EAKLY HISTORY OF AMERICA. 161 

place among a free and great people, was really 
no better than a fool ! 

But why, if tlie goods were poisoned, did 
not Rednaxela, ruler of Aissur, follow the 
example of [N'oel-opan ? This may seem an 
objection : but, on a closer survey, it will 
prove a strong confirmation of our view. 
The fourth chai^ter will disclose to us the 
machinations of that wily sovereign so clear- 
ly, as to leave no doubt of his having 
throughout played a double part ; and affect- 
ed a sort of friendship for I^oel-opajst, while 
he was really in league with his implacable 
enemy. The goods, then, imported into Ais- 
sur were not poisoned ; because Rednaxela 
had a secret understanding with the king of 
IS^iATiRB : and the refusal of Rednaxela to 
burn the ISTiatirbite merchandise was rightly 
taken by JToel-opan as an acknowledgment 
that such an understanding subsisted. These 
multiplied confirmations, as it appears to me, 
place the hypothesis of the poisoned merclian' 
dise beyond all reasonable doubt. 

I am disposed to allo^^^ that there may bo 



162 HISTORIC CEKTAINTIES RESPECTING 

a considerable amount of trutli in the account 
of JSToel-opan's campaign against the Aissuk- 
iTEs. We mnst, however, make large allow- 
ances for the warm colouring of a prejudiced 
narrator. There is, however, this mark of 
veracity to be recognised, that he allows 
ISToel-opan to have been victorious in his con- 
flicts with human enemies. That he was ul- 
timately obliged to retire before the severity 
of a ]^orthern 'winter^ is no impeachment of 
his military prowess. As Philip 11. said in a 
like case. He waged war with men, not the 
elements. But that his retreat was not the 
total rout which is here described, is plain 
from the fact that we find him again immedi- 
ately in the field at the head of a great host. 
Armies cannot be conjured up in a day by an 
enchanter's wand. There is also a manifest 
piece of falsification in representing Rednax- 

* AissuR, or AissoTir, may be the region from which 
the Missouri {"^^'Si'^lSi *^?3 mei-aissur — "the waters of Ais- 
Bur") takes its name. It is clearly part of "the north 
country." Aissitrpi, again, — i, e. ^^ 'n^EJ'^S^j "the mouth of 
AissuE," — woi Id suit the geographical position of Texas. 



THE EARLY HISTOKT OF AJVIEKICA. 163 

ela's subjects (the slaves of a despot!) as lite- 
ally /b^rcm^ their sovereign to refuse condi- 
tions of peace. The object of that myth is 
transparent. Its design is to represent the 
government of IToel-opai^ as even still more 
odious to the people, than to the princes of 
foreign states, — how truly, we have already 
seen. 

It is quite possible, indeed, that Rednax- 
ELA may have drawn his unguarded enemy 
into a treaty, for the purpose of detaining 
him till winter, and then made the pretended 
violence of his subjects an excuse for break- 
ing it. This would be quite in keeping with 
that monarch's character. 

I must, however, do the chronicler the 
justice of observing that, in one place, an 
injury has been done him by the transcrib- 
f>rs. Monstrous as some of his legends are, 
he conld hardly have meant to say, that " the 
Aissurites set fire to Yocsom (their own 
capital !) and burned it." Aissurites is here 
plainly a mistake for Ecnarfites. The word 
had occurred so frequently in the preceding 



164 HISTORIC CERTAINTIES RESPECTING 

sentences that the sleepy cop}^st unwarily 
substituted it here, where it makes nonsense 
of the passage. I do not, however, undertake 
to maintain the truth of even this corrected 
statement. 



Chap. HI. 



The sovereigns of Aissurpi and S aturia appear 
to have been encouraged by the reverses of 
!N^0EL-0PAN to resume their old hostility. It 
is remarkable, however, that, in the account 
of this formidable confederation, we find no 
mention of the king of ^iatirb. The restless 
enmity of that monarch, no doubt, made him^ 
willing enough to join in it ; but the late in- 
famous affair of the poisoned merchandise (in 
which he showed himself ready to sacrifice 
the lives of his former allies for the sake of 
wounding Ecnarf through their sides) had 
probably so disgusted the other rulers of 
Eporue, that they declined his scandalous as- 



THE EAKLY HISTORY OF AMERICA. 165 

sistance. In his place we have a recreant 
EcNARFiTE, the ruler of Kedews, — bribed, as 
we shall see presently, to this base act, by 
the gift of a province wrested from Kjiamned. 
In this war misfortune seems again to 
have attended the Ecnaefites. ISToel-opan's 
army, thinned by the calamities of the 
Aissueite campaign, was probably now not 
numerous enough to cope with the overwhelm- 
ing masses of the combined despots. Strata- 
gem of some perfidious sort, seems also to 
have been employed. I say of some perfid- 
ious sort I — ^because the chronicler betrays un- 
easiness in describing it, by having recourse 
to a daring falsehood. He represents I!^oel- 
OPAN as deliberately breaking down all tho 
bridges hut one behind his own army. If he 
had said, that this heroic chief broke down 
all the hridges^ we might possibly credit the 
story. Such things have been done by mili- 
tary commanders to inspire their armies with 
the courage of desperation ; though the 
EcNARFiTE soldiery seem not to have belonged 
to that class which requires such mean stimii- 



166 HISTORIC CEETAINTIES EESPECTING 

lants to valour.^' But to break down all the 
bridges hut one, would have been the act of 
an idiot. It would have manifested at once 
that he was in ineditatione fugce, and yet de^ 
signed to make his retreat as disastrous as 
possible. This, I say again, is incredible. 
If ^OEL-oPAN had not intended to retreat, but 
in case of defeat, to perish, like the Spartans 
at Thermopylae, on the field of battle, he 
would have broken down all the hridges. If, 
on the contrary, he had contemplated a re- 
treat, he would have desired to bring off his 
army as safely as he could ; and, therefore, 
would have broken none. The story refutes 
itself. But such lies are not forged gratui- 
tously. Fixing hlame upon E^oel-opan be- 
trays a consciousness that blame must be 
fixed somewhere. We may consequently as- 
sume that it was not by any legitimate ma- 
noeuvre, but by some perfidious stratagem, 
the bridges were broken down in the rear of 

* Ethie. Nicom. iii. 11. koI oi irph ruv rdcppav . . 
TrapaTctTTOVTCs • Travres yap avayKd^^ovaiy. Se? 8'oy 5t' avdyKTji 
ai'dpeToy elvai, aW on Kak6v. 



THE EAELY HISTORY OF AMERICA. 167 

the EoNAEFiTEs: and, casting onr eye upon 
the immediate context, we instinctively recog- 
nise the traitor. "Then the king of Ai- 
ravab, whom ISToel-opan had made king of Ai- 
EAVAB, came out to stop the way against the 
EcNARFiTEs." Can there be a doubt that it 
was through the treachery of this man (who 
was probably left to guard the passes) that 
the bridges were broken down behind the 
great captain of the Ecnakfites ? 

Still, amidst all his unmerited misfortunes, 
the genius of ]^oel-opa^ appears to have tri- 
umphed : and the terms of peace which he 
finally arranged, though they dimmed his 
personal splendour in point of outward rank 
and power, secured to Ecji^aef the solid good 
she had long struggled for ; while, to all 
thinking men, the greatness of ISToel-opajs" in 
his retirement, of generous self-sacrifice, must 
have seemed more sublime than when in the 
zenith of his success. The chronicler, of 
course, would have us believe that 'Noel-opan 
surrendered at discretion. But his own facts 
refute him. By his own statement it appear? 



168 HISTORIC CERTAINTIES RESPECTING 

that SivoL II. was restored upon condition of 
leaving the Constitution of ]N^oel-opan intact, 
and renouncing all his brother's political con- 
nexions. The hateful " laws and ordinances 
of J^iATiRB," which EcNARF had so long resist- 
ed, were abandoned for ever. The interest of 
that odious power had declined even amongst 
its ancient (and in some respects natural) 
allies. Circumstances had smoothed the way 
for a general pacification: and Noel-op an, 
perceiving that he alone was an obstacle tc 
this desirable conclusion, magnanimously 
laid down the power which he had unam- 
bitiously assumed. He had taken it for the 
good of EcNARF ; he resigned it for the 
good of EcNARF. Let the reader pardon me 
if I seem to speak warmly. Every honest 
heart will feel, and every ardent one will ex- 
press, a kind of exultation at rescuing a great 
character from the fang of calumny. The 
present case reminds us of the case of !N"iaps : 
and what we then proved confirms (I think 
irresistibly) our account of the transaction 
before us. We have to deal with the same 



THE EAELY IIISTOPwY OF AilERICA. 169 

falsehood, — only somewhat more carefully 
elaborated. 

If fm'ther confirmation were needed, it 
would be found in the remaining part of the 
chapter. It cannot be believed (at least by 
any but a ISTiATmBiTE intellect) that, if the 
rulers of Epoeue had really thought ]^oel-opan 
the ambitious and oppressive monster whom 
this historian paints him — " a tyrant and a mur- 
derer" — they would, now that they had him 
at their mercy, deserted by his own subjects, 
and reduced to beg compassion from his ene- 
mies, have put him in possession of Abel, oi 
given " silver and gold" to his mother and 
brethren ! We know them by this time ra- 
ther too well to credit such rash generosity on 
their part. Let me observe too, that, in the 
MS. already mentioned, of these chronicles, I 
find a marginal gloss upon the word Abel, to 
this effect : " Behold, it is nigh unto Akiseoc, 
and lieth in the sea, as thou sailest towards 
the sun-rising." This is an important fact. 
IS^OEL-oPAN withdrew, it appears, to the scenes 
of his nativity. Probably, Abel Avas the 
8 



170 HISTOEIC CERTAINTIES RESPECTING 

larger — from its name,* we may add, the 
more fertile — island, npon whicli Akiskoc de- 
pended. In this case ISToel-gpa^ wonld have 
liad the satisfaction of guiding, in his declin- 
ing years, the fortunes of his own country, 
and reviving, amidst his patriotic cares, the 
recollections of his youth. 

I pass over the incidental notices of ]^oel- 
opan's domestic affairs. We have not, per- 
haps, light enough to judge of these private 
transactions. Like some other illustrious per- 
sons, he seems to have been unfortunate in 
his wives. But the less we meddle needless- 
ly with the ladies the better ; otherwise one 
might remark that, proposing to himself 
tranquillity in the close of his life, ISToel-opan 

* 'b'2^ " locus graminosus paseuum." Gesenius. Com- 
pare the Arabic, .lj|. It occurs in the names of places. 2 
Sam. XX. 14 ; Numb, xxxiii. 49 ; Mich. vi. 5 ; Judg. xi. 33, 
&e. The expression in the gloss, " towards the sun-rising," 
leads us to the etymology of Akisroc. It was considered the 
last island of the west, and more properly connected with the 
mst. Hence its name, Jilf'^ns^ (aclii-zroch,) "the brother 
of the sun-rising." This favours the idea of its being-a de 
pendency upon Abel. 



THE EAELT IIISTOEY OF AMEEICA. 171 

may not liave grieved yerj mncli that he saw 
the face of his second wife {}he daughter of 
the ruler of Satukia) no more. 



Chap. IY. 



I NEED hardlj pause to observe that the chro- 
nological arrangement is not exactly followed 
in this chapter, which plainly refers to the 
times of the last campaign against ]^oel-opan, 
immediately before his retirement. It is a 
highly im]Dortant piece of history, and throws 
much light upon the crooked policy of the 
king of NiATiKB, and his base associate Red- 

NAXELA. 

According to the chronicle, this latter 
prince is described as, first concerting with 
ISToEL-opAN the employment of the Keamned- 
ITE ships against I^iatirb, and then assisting 
j^iATTRB in its unjust detention of those very 
ships. Such conduct, even upon this state- 
ment, would be perfidious enough ; but it is 



172 IIISTOEIC CEIiTAINTIES KESPECTHSTG 

too absurd to be believed. The chronicler 
seems to have little regard to the character 
of Kednaxela, and paints his meanness in its 
true colours ; but, in order to screen the vil- 
lany of the king of IS^iatieb, he throws in a 
spice of fatuity which spoils the compound. 
Knaves, indeed, are often fools in the long 
T%in j but they are not mere idiots. ISToel- 
OPAN, we may be sure, never published or 
owned any design upon the Kkamnedite navy ; 
so that the only evidence of this pretended 
secret plot between him and Rednaxela, 
must rest upon the testimony of the latter, — 
the confession of an avowed jparticejps crim- 
inis. IsTo jury ever convicted the meanest 
culprit on the uncorroborated declarations of 
a guilty informer ; and we cannot admit this 
impudent assertion as sufficient to implicate 
one, whose character has hitherto stood 
the test of very severe examination. This 
pretended league was a convenient pretext 
for a bold act of tyranny ; and, applying to 
the case the reasonable criterion of cui bono, 
we must determine that the king of IsTiatieb 



TOE EAKLY HISTORY OF AMEEICA. 1T3 

(who reaped the profit of the story) was 
the original inventor of the lie; in passing 
which he met with ready assistance from 
the frontless impudence of the nnbhishing 
Kednaxela. 

Keamked being thus disabled by the 
seizure of its fleet, the ruler of Xedews 
thought he had a good opportunity of par- 
taking in the spoils. It is evident that he 
had previously bargained for the connivance 
of the other powers, and that Yavron was, in 
fact, the price of his treachery to I^oel-opajn". 
If the Yavronties had been misled into the 
belief that the king of ITiatirb was a friend 
to freedom, and had assisted the IN'iAPsrrEs to 
obtain it, they were now imdeceived ; and 
the conduct of that infamous prince (even on 
the representation of his own partial chroni 
cler) in the present instance, is so inexpressi 
bly base and cruel as to leave no doubt thai 
I have throughout given a fairly drawn pic- 
ture of him. l^ext to that of vindicating a 
hero is to be ranked the pleasure of detecting 
a scoundrel. 



174 HISTORIC CERTALN^TEES RESPECTING 

I do not pretend to clear up all the per- 
plexities which involve the mysterious per 
son who figures under the name of Apap. 
How the EcNARFiTEs should have been " ser- 
vants to him " it is not easy to understand. 
But etymology* will favour the conjecture 
that he may have held some titular pre-emi- 
nence among the states of Eporue (a vestige 
of old patriarchal connexions) — in some re- 
spects analogous to that of the German em- 
perors in mediaeval Europe. The more fero- 
cious nations of ITiatirb and the " north 
country " spurned his innocent traditionary 
claims to respect ; which were gently acqui- 
esced in by the milder EcisrARFiTEs. Hence 

* P and B being interchangeable, I take Apap to be 
equivalent to Abab, a reduplicate of j^j^, father. Compare 
the Greek TraTTTras. The whole of Eporue may have been 
originallj one state, and Apap the lineal representative of 
its ancient sovereigns. So to a very late period, and after 
the house of Timour had really nothing left them but a 
email territory round Delhi, the coin, throughout the whole 
of what was their empire, was struck in the name of the 
Great Mogul. The position of the later caliphs would 
furnish another analogy. 



THE EAJSLY HISTOHY OF AMERICA. 175 

the rude people of the north described the 
southerns as his servants. We have ah-eady 
learned from the history of Zednaneef (a key 
which unlocks many difficulties) the true 
meaning of a captimty in Ecnajrf. Apap had 
found an asylum in that country. His resto- 
ration appears to have been one of the points 
insisted on by ISToEL-oPAiq' in the general pa- 
cification ; and the princes of the north, know- 
ing that Apap was " an abomination " to their 
subjects, were obliged to colour their unpop- 
ular act of justice as they best could, by re- 
presenting it as done to spite the EcNAEFriEs. 
If the story, after all, could not be made very 
consistent, that was not their fault. 



Chap. Y. 

"We may dismiss this chapter without much 
ceremony. It is a pure myth from begin- 
ning to end : probably the work of some later 
legendary, who was desirous of giving to the 



176 HISTORIC CERTAIJsTIES RESPECTING 

KiATiKBiTES tlie whole glory of finally crusli- 
ing jN'oel-opan."^ They had, as we have seen, 
no share in the great combination of princes 
which led to his retirement. It was, there 
fore, requisite that he shonld be brought upon 
the arena once more to receive the finishing 
stroke from the misericordia of the king of 
NiATiRB. In other respects, this second sub- 
jugation of I^OEL-OPAN is a mere repetition of 
the former ; — -just as Rebecca's adventure wiJ;h 
Abimelech is a counterpart of Sarah's, in the 
harem of Pharaoh. A great battle, ending 
in grievous slaughter of the Eonarfites : the 
flight of ISToEL-oPAN to Strap : the eagerness 
of the populace to " thrust him out ;" his ban- 
ishment to an islandjf and finally the tranquil 
re-establishment of Sivol II. on the throne of 
Eon ARE. Ovum non ovo similms. Homer's 
imhappy warriors are most unceremoniously 
resuscitated, when some hero's glory demands 

* It is ia fact wJiat the immortal Strauss calls " a glori- 
fying myth." 

f The expression, "another island," is important^ as a 
distinct admission that Abel ^vas an istana. 



THE EARLY HISTORY OF A^CEKICA. lYT 

tliat he should " fight his battles o'er again," 
and " thrice slay the slain." But E'oel-opan's 
return from Abel and second banishment, 
will only be received by those who expect 
the grand Avatar of Prince Arthur, "rex 
quondam, rexque futurus," or those similar 
mythic figments which may be found in most 
popular creeds. 

Qui Bavium non odit amet tua carmina Maevi. 

Let the reader observe how many marks 
of the genuine myth here combine : — 

1. The miraculous* complexion of the 
events. ]^oel-opai5' returns with 600 men ! 
IMMEDIATELY all EcNAEF submits, and Sivol 
flies without striking a blow. ISToel-opan is 

* " A second law, observable in every event, is tliat of 
succession : even in the most violent epochs, in the most 
rapid changes, a certain order of development may always 
bo remarked ; everything has its origin, its increase, and its 

decrease In fine, when we take into account all the 

psychologic laws, we cannot believe that a man should, on 
any particular occasion, feel, think, or act otherwise than as 
men ordinarily act, or as they themselves would have acted 
at another time." — Leben Jesu, § xvi. 
8* 



1Y8 HisTOEic up:ktaikties respecting 

defeated in one tattle ; and imi^iediately tlie 
EcNAEFiTES thrust liim out. Siyol returns as 
rapidly as he fled ; I^oel-opan chooses to sur- 
render to his greatest enemy, the king of 
]N"iATrRB. It is really like the changes of a 
Christmas pantomime. 

2. The expectation that a great person, 
whose actions have deeply impressed the 
public mind, should return, is a common 
phenomenon. And such expectations (as in 
the case of the Jewish Messiah) often produce 
a belief in their own fulfilment. 

3. The honour of IN^iatirb required this 
appendix. 

4. The story is worked up from the mate- 
rials of older legends. 

5. It is inconsistent with the previous nar- 
rative. 

{a). In that, ^oel-opan was thrust out as 
a murderer and a tyrant : In this^ he is re- 
ceived with open arms. 

(b). In that, Ecnakf had just lost three 
great armies successively : In this, after less 
than a year's space, Koel-opan is able to 



THE EAKLY HISTORY OF AMERICA. 179 

raise, in that same country, another army, 
large enough to tight a desperate battle with 
the fresh troops of jN^iatieb, Aissiirpi, and 
MuiGLEB.'^ Unless, indeed, we suj^pose that 
J^OEL-opAi:^ encountered the combined host 
with his " 600 men who drew the sword." 

(<?). In tJiat^ I^oel-opan's settlement in 
Abel is made freely by the assembled princes 
for the purpose of removing all danger of his 
further interference : In this^ the place and 
circumstances seem so badly chosen that he 
is able to recover his throne in a few months. 

{d). In that, the king of ]^iatirb is his 
most hated enemy. While other princes 
seem disposed to deal mildly with him, and 
are " merciful kings ;" especially the king of 
Sathria, with whom he is connected by mar- 
riage. In this, he chooses to surrender to 

* Gleb may be the lost radical of the Latin G^eha. Mu 
(i is only a syllable of composition) connects itself with the 
Hebrew ^^, ^)2, aiid the Coptic Mo, water (Jablonsky opusc. 
t i. p. 152). Hence we have Mu-i-gleh, "the watery soil:" 
probably the alluvial deposit of the Sacramento or Amazon 
rivers. 



180 HISTORIC CERTAINTIES RESPECTING 

the king of Niatirb ; who, instead of keeping 
him (as he easily might) in ITiatirb, sends 
him to a distant land, for the sake of heing 
obliged to maintain a fleet of ships to guard 
him. 

(e). In that, JNoel-opan always fldes when 
he is left with only a small force. In this, he 
trusts himself to the people who had just 
driven him away with 600 men ! 

If this etory be not a myth, where are 
inythc to be found T 



APPENDIX. 



ON THE SATUEIAl^S. 

Some remarks connected with this important 
point have been communicated to me by a 
learned friend, Professor Siliyman of Massa- 
chusetts, which I here subjoin in the shape 
of an Excursus. 

" While fully admitting the identity of the 
Satyrs of Greek history and the Satukians of 
these chronicles, I prefer the old Shemitic 
etymology "inD abscondit^ to that suggested by 
my ingenious friend, Mr. Newlight. We may, 
I think, trace that etymology to an old legend, 
preserved by Zarate, {Discovery of Ferii^ t. 
ii. p. 49,) which relates that some of the peo- 
ple of South America were compelled to take 



182 APPENDIX- 

refuge, from a great flood, in coA^ems. Hence 
they may, in memory of tlieir deliverance, 
have assumed the title of Saturians or Troglo- 
dytes. 

That the Satyrs were really of American 
origin, appears incontestably from many con- 
siderations. 

1. We have in ^lian ( V, H. iii. 18) an 
account of a conversation between Midas (the 
gold-seeker) and Silenus, the chief of the 
Satyrs. The statements there made by the 
Satyr are manifestly a description of South 
America, mixed up with some mythical in- 
terpolations. Let the reader judge. "He 
said, that Europe, Asia, and Libya, were 
only islands surrounded by the ocean; but 
that the true continent {"Hireipov, cf. Epoeue) 
was that which lies 'beyond this world'. He 
declared its magnitude to be immense, . . . 
and that there were many and great cities in 

it That there were two prii cipal ones, 

the warlike and the just^ (compare the lan- 
guage of the chronicler with respect to Ecnaef 
and its rivals) .... that they have great 



APPENDIX. 



188 



plenty of silver and gold, so that iron is more 
valued there than gold, &c." 

Here then, I think, we have plainly a 
Saturian's own account of his own continent. 

2. The Satyrs are expressly called by 
Hesy chilis, Aev/caXiSat. J^ow there can be 
little reasonable doubt that the story of the 
]S"oachic or Deucaleonite deluge had its origin 
in the knowledge of the founders of the 
Semitic race having come from America, 
emerging from 

The world of waves, the sea without a sliore. 

The original name of (at least a part of) 
America was, as Daumer has proved, IToah. 
That the Semitic races derived their origin 
from I^oah, was the genuine tradition ; which 
was disguised by the myth in question. In 
later times again, the mythic dove (Columba 
I^om) gave occasion to the fable of Colunibus ; 
just as the true etymology of the name 
America — nr^i-^^-^^t, " the Mother of Flowers,'^ 
suggested the story of Amerigo the "Floken- 

TINE. 



184 APPENDIX. 

3. Bacchus (whose story Huetius* long 
ago detected in the myth of Moses) was prob- 
ably the hero-leader of a Saturian colony. 
(Plutarch, indeed, Syvvpos. lib. iv. quest. 5, j). 
671,) has pointed out at large the conformity 
between the Bacchic and Jewish solemnities ; 
and the distinct statement of Montesinos 
(given by Manasseh Ben Israel in his Spes 
Israelis, Amstel. 1650) respecting an essen- 
tially Jewish race, speaking an essentially 
Hebrew language, in South America, has 
been often laughed at but never refuted. 
The popular reader will find a pretty accu- 
rate but grossly prejudiced account of the 
matter in Basnage's History of the Jews, book 
vi. chap. 3. An American origin may be 
traced clearly in the myth of Moses being so 
called because taken out of an ark floating in 
the water, — the established symbol of an 
American colonist." 

* Demonstr. Evangel., Prop. iv. c. iiL § 8. 
THE END. 




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Franks, who having lost an arm and become unfit for service in his 
profession, retired to a country village and took up the business of 
schoolmaster. In the history of this man the authoress, with her 
accustomed felicity of manner, illustrates successively those virtues 
enumerated by Paul as constituting the Christian's armor. 



Xry A.ffain, 

Dear.) By A. 



(Containing Esther Parsons and Paying 
L. 0. E. 



A Series of Short Stories by this admirable writer, some of them 
in her happiest vein. 



Christian Conquests. (Containing Bags of Gold 
and Falsely Accused.) By A. L. 0. E. 

The Silver Casket, By A. L. O. E. 

This author is one of the few who excel in allegory ; and in this 
Y-^ok, as in several other of her works, she has a fashion, quite peca- 
iJar to herself, and entirely successful, of uniting the allegory with a 
fttory of real life, and yet without any confusion. It is remarkable, 
«vcn beyond her other books, for the felicity with which it illustrates 
toportant texts of Scripture. 



uiustratea y 





z<ri3srETir ceitts e-A-CH. 



.( Coriley ^Tall. (Containing the Straight Road and 
Stories from Jewish History.) By A. L. O. E. 

Good for JS^vlt, and other Stories for the 

Young. By A. L. O. E. 

Yhe 'I^et babbits. Containing Happy Charlie and 
What Elise Loved Best. By the Author of " Kitty's 
Victory." 
A very pretty Collection of Stories for little children, printed in 

large type and with many illustrations. 

Jbtty and Ji^aty in the Country, By the Author 
of " Little Katy and Jolly Jim." 

An excellent story of two city children, enfeebled in health, who 
upent a portion of the summer on a farm In the country. There is 
something sound and cheering in the general tone of the book, be- 
sides the direct religious teachings which it contains. It is a first rate 
book for the Sabbath-school library. 

Co7istance and £Idith. 

fThe Sale of Criemniie. Containing the Diamond 
Brooch and the Buried Bible. 
A very admirable Series of Stories. 

JPfatid Summers, the Sightless, 

J^fabel's Experience, or, Seeking and Finding. 

A beautiful Story of Scottish life, showing the wisdom of a religi- 
ous choice, and illustrating the methods of Providence In lendkig 
souls to Christ. 



NEW A. L. O. E. BOOKS, 

AT 60 CENTS EACn. 

rThe Red Cross Knight, Ned Franks, 

Paying Dear for It, Esther Parsons, 

The Bags of Gold, Falsely Accused, 

Stories of Jewish History. 






C 2: " 89 1| 












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;kman 

ERY INC. 

. AUG 89 

W N. MANCHESTER, 
f INDIANA 46962 







